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GOLDEN RULES 



OF 



SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY; 



OR, 



A NEW SYSTEM 



PRACTICAL ETHICS 



BY SIR RICHARD PHILLIPS. 



LONDON : 
PRINTED FOR THE AUTHOR, 

£3H> TO BE HAD OF ALL BOOKSELLERS. 

1826. 

(Pritt ICU. 6d. in boards.) 






J. AND C. ADLARD, PRINTERS, BARTHOLOMEW-CLOSE. 



TO SIMON BOLIVAR, 



THE LIBERATOR. 



SIR, 

To what living personage can I so pro- 
perly dedicate a work on the social duties of 
men, as to the founder of many indepen- 
dent states ? I regard myself as fortunate 
in being even the contemporary of a 
character whose public virtues and dis- 
interested patriotism transcend not merely 
every example presented by history, but 
surpass all that philosophy could have 
expected to see realized ; and I present, 
therefore, to such a man, the homage of 
my affections, and the intellectual pro- 
ducts of my life. 

In various forms this book embraces 
6 



IV TO SIMON BOLIVAK, 

most of the subjects on which a founder 
of empires can he supposed to be en- 
gaged in practice or speculation ; and it 
may, in the estimation of foreigners, add 
something to the worth of the sentiments 
inculcated, that they are the fruits of the 
experience of an Englishman who has 
passed a life of action and observation in 
that country in which all principles that 
exalt human nature have been effectively 
cultivated, and publicly or privately exhi- 
bited in practice. 

The maxims in this volume are, there- 
fore, drawn from the school of British 
experience, and they are in that sense 
more valuable than mere closet specula- 
tions ; at the same time, they have been 
expressed with more intellectual indepen- 
dence than could be felt or exercised by 
writers of other ages, when fewer princi- 
ples had been developed, or in countries 
where restraints on the press operate as 
fetters on the mind, even of the most 
courageous and independent. 



THE LIBERATOR. V 

Of course I do not assume that many 
of my countrymen could not have done 
more credit to the national wisdom, — but 
I have done mv best, and have set an 
example which I shall be happy to see 
followed by others with more success. 
My utmost ambition will be gratified if 
the doctrines inculcated in this work prove 
useful to nations who are not too old, 
and too wise, to receive instruction ; and, 
above all, if they should be honoured by 
your attention and approbation. 

I have for above forty years contem- 
plated the prostrate condition of South 
America, and have viewed with grief the 
inutility of the numerous capabilities of 
those provinces which, by your arm and 
example, have now become independent 
nations. I have deeply sympathized in 
their struggles, and lamented the mischiefs 
which it has too often been in the power of 
vengeful, because imbecile, tyranny to 
inflict. I had the gratification to be 
personally known to that superior being 



VI TO SIMON BOLIVAR, 

Miranda, and his tragical end left me 
almost without hope ; but, happily for 
South America, and honourably for hu- 
man nature, a Bolivar arose, who com- 
bined the zeal of Miranda with the 
public virtues of a Washington and 
the military prowess of a Napoleon. 
The circumstances required such a man ; 
but to expect him to appear was the 
anticipation of a prodigy, — yet he did 
appear, — and that prodigy you have 
proved yourself. 

Simon Bolivar will, therefore, in the 
records of humanity, rank foremost among 
the great and good ; and, while North 
America may challenge the old continent 
for a parallel to her Washington, South 
America may challenge all history for 
a parallel to her Bolivar ! 

How often have the virtuous struggles 
of the human race, to emancipate them- 
selves from the fetters of craft and abused 
power, been thwarted by the personal 
ambition, or rather folly, of those military 



THE LIBERATOR. vii 

leaders to whom the defence of the public 
cause had been entrusted! Fatal expe- 
rience seemed to prove, that sacrifices 
were always to be made in vain, and that 
mankind had nothing to hope, because the 
overthrow of one tyranny led only to 
another, accompanied by the turpitude of 
bad faith and insulting usurpation. It is 
therefore a new era in the history of the 
world to behold the victorious leader of 
armies shrinking from the distinctions 
which a grateful people seek to bestow 
upon him; declining powers which he 
might plausibly wield for the public ser- 
vice, rather than render his patriotism 
equivocal or suspicious; and honestly 
declaring that, when he has vanquished the 
enemy, and organized free govern- 
ments, he will look on his glorious works 
in the capacity of a mere private 
citizen. 

Such, however, is the conduct dictated 
by true wisdom ; for what hereafter will 



V11I TO SIMON BOLIVAR. 

be all titles of power, all distinctions of 
society, all thrones and diadems, all royal 
and imperial titles, compared with the 
having been a Bolivar ! 

Forgive, Sir, this strain of admiration ; 
and regard it as the language of principle, 
dictated by duty and truth. 

R. Phillips, 

London, Dec. 13, 1825. 



PREFACE. 



This volume is the production of a prac- 
tical man, who has acquired many of the 
truths and principles which it exhibits 
by his personal experience, others by his 
intercourse with men of appropriate in- 
telligence, and many by prolonged medi- 
tation on the subjects of which he has 
ventured to treat. 

Though many of his topics are so 
familiar and so operative on men's for- 
tunes and happiness, that it might be 
expected ingenuity had exhausted itself 
in analyzing and discussing them, yet 
their very homeliness seems to have been 
a cause of neglect, and the exposition, 
at least of most of the subjects, is now 
attempted for the first time. 

They presented no crowns to literary 

a2 



X PREFACE. 

ambition, no materials for poetry, no 
regions for new discovery ; they apper- 
tained in no respect to the researches of 
the closet ; and they were for the most 
part too familiar and too useful to be 
engrafted on learned and fashionable 
education. Hence the Author undertook 
a task in which he has throughout been 
called upon to think for himself, and has 
been able to draw little or nothing from 
the stores or suggestions of others; while 
his plan compelled him to adventure opi- 
nions on many subjects in which the 
passions and interests of mankind are 
intensely involved. 

To render such a work really useful, — 
to tell the truth, and the whole truth, 
— required fearless honesty ; and, to tell 
nothing but the truth, much anxious dis- 
crimination. In regard to the former 
quality, he would, if he thought his work 
sufficiently important, re-act the part of 
Lycurgus, and seal his doctrines by self- 
devotion ; and in regard to the latter, if 



PREFACE. XI 

he has erred, his mistakes have not sprung 
from corruption, from love of antithesis 
or novelty, or from any sentiment tend- 
ing to create despair or discontent ; for he 
is not a man of a gloomy spirit, but at 
the same time is in earnest ; and he con- 
ceives that men would always be better, 
if they were wiser, and that, when they 
err, it is either from miscalculation or 
from ignorance. 

Some of the articles in this volume 
have been for many years before the pub- 
lic, as those on Magistrates, Sheriffs, 
Electors, Jurors, and Parish Priests ; 
others are partly new or newly arranged 
and amalgamated ; while about half the vo- 
lume has been expressly written to confer 
completeness on the design. Of the 
Golden Rules for Electors and Jurymen, 
perhaps half a million of copies have in 
sundry forms, and at various periods, been 
distributed, and it may be hoped, with 
useful effect. The others have had a more 
limited circulation ; but, as each addresses 



XU PREFACE, 

a distinct class, few persons possess more 
than that which applies to the duties of 
their own station. 

As time and much public approba- 
tion have conferred character on these, 
the Author has no solicitude in laying 
them in this new form before the world. 
It would gratify him if he could be- 
lieve that he has succeeded equally 
well in the new articles. That ad- 
dressed to Sovereigns must necessarily 
be useless to reigning princes, who will 
conceive that they at least know their 
duties, as well as one who has viewed 
courts chiefly at a distance, and under 
all the disguises of long-studied systems. 
His maxims are, therefore, those of a 
subject, who knows better what a king 
ought to do, than what he is able to do. 
In this sense, however, the sentiments 
of a Subject may not be unuseful, 
while, as part of the education of princes, 
such a condensation of duties and princi- 
ples cannot fail to be beneficial. 



PREFACE, Xlli 

Legislators and Journalists are 
classes who, if not so powerful and so 
much flattered as reigning princes, are 
nevertheless powerful enough to be in- 
tractable in regard to instruction, and too 
wise in their own opinions to conceive 
they require any. Yet, in regard to the 
former, the younger members may be 
wrought upon ; and, to the latter, if they 
cannot reform themselves, an honest ex- 
posure of their foibles and vices will render 
them less mischievous to an enlightened 
public. 

The least tractable class whom the 
Author has presumed to address, are the 
Philosophers, — those flexible patients of 
their reason,— those votaries of truth, — 
those dispassionate examples of human 
wisdom ! They are so thoroughly satis- 
fied with the systems which were con- 
structed in the twilights of knowledge by 
venerated personages, and sustained by 
venerable institutions, that the Author 
frankly confesses he considers the pages 



XIV PREFACE. 

dedicated to them as utterly useless ; 
except, indeed, it be with those who have 
not publicly taught errors, who have not 
written books in error, who do not profess 
errors, who consider authority as inferior 
to reason, and who, of the rising generation, 
happily are indifferent either to truth or 
falsehood, but will instinctively prefer 
the former. 

As the work has, throughout, sprung 
from the mind of the author, so he has 
freely asserted his own opinions, whether 
they accord or not with the predilections 
of the age. In speculations of this na- 
ture, he respects no authority, in regard 
to truth, but his own convictions. If 
these are erroneous, he shall be happy to 
see them corrected, and be forward in 
entering into explanations with liberal 
enquirers. He has no affection for any 
opinions for their own sake. He has no 
fear of censure, for this depends chiefly on 
the re-action of the prejudices, interests, 
and passions, of those who inflict it ; and 



PREFACE. XV 

he has little to hope from praise, because 
this tardy and silent energy is generally 
overwhelmed by the boisterous clamours 
of those who think their wisdom is best 
displayed by the severity and dogmatism 
of their animadversions. 

The sole object of the Author has been 
to be useful ; and he is content with the 
feeling, that he has attempted to be so. 
He has anxiously inculcated all the chari- 
ties of life, and all the virtues of sound mo- 
rals, or atleast what he considers to be such; 
he has endeavoured to make men wiser 
and happier, and has even extended his 
code of sympathy to the brute creation. 
Without co-operation, his labours would 
be useless : he hopes, therefore, that they 
will be duly appreciated by the wise and 
benevolent ; and, as to the rest, he is 
utterly and inflexibly indifferent. 

[n addressing so many interests, the 
author is aware that he appears to throw 
down the gauntlet of defiance to many pre- 
judices,— may be considered as wantonly 
assailing much self-love,— and be in danger 



XVI PREFACE, 

of drawing upon himself the rage of nests 
of buzzing, though perfectly harmless, 
critics. For these possible results he is 
sorry, because he courts the tranquillity 
of retirement, and abhors controversy ; but 
he should have compromised his character, 
and failed in the object of his work, if he 
had been influenced by any considerations 
besides his devotion to truth, and his 
respect for the sound intelligence of the 
age in which he writes. 

If, perchance, any individual should see, 
as in a mirror, the portrait of his own 
foibles, vices, or deformities, he must con- 
sider the paragraph as performing the 
mere optical powers of a mirror ; for, 
throughout the work, the Author has not 
written at any individual, and has strictly 
avoided any allusion to contemporary 
personages; his work being, as he pre- 
sumes, addressed to human nature in the 
abstract, and of all ages and countries. 

Pretensions to infallibility would be 
inconsistent with the principles and feelings 
2 



PREFACE. XVII 

of the Author. As he affectsno power of the 
kind, he will be highly gratified at receiv- 
ing, or at seeing in print, any free and 
candid animadversions on any of the mul- 
tifarious doctrines in his book; and will 
assiduously avail himself of them, if it 
should, in his time, arrive at a second 
edition. In that respect, a modern 
author, bound in the fetters of a large 
edition, does not possess the advantages of 
the ancient writers, who, while every copy 
was an edition, had it in their power to 
correct from day to day, and, thereby, 
to reduce their language and reasonings 
to that degree of mathematical precision 
which is their resulting characteristic. To 
be useful, an author must be respected ; 
and, to be respected, he must be as per- 
fect as possible ; and the Author of the pre- 
sent work confesses that he has an ambition 
to be useful, — and that such ambition has 
been the stimulus of his exertions ; while, 
in the quality of perfection, he defers to 
others, and expects no homage beyond the 



XV111 PREFACE. 

small share which self-love may think 
proper to concede. 

Writers of adages and maxims too 
generally sacrifice truth to antitheses, and 
to mere graces of composition. The 
present writer affects no more than to 
state what is true, in a plain way. His 
sole ambition is to be understood ; and 
his points and graces lie entirely in the 
force with which he has endeavoured to 
impress his readers, in regard to truths of 
which he himself felt a thorough convic- 
tion. He has deferred to no prejudices, 
for he respects none ; and if he had done 
so, his book would but have added to the 
useless lumber of libraries. He has as- 
sailed many prejudices, but not all: this 
would be a task which would have 
appalled Hercules himself, for they are 
almost as numerous as men's ideas ; and 
books in general, at least successful books, 
do but flatter, foster, and sustain them. 
He has, however, assailed enow to 
draw on himself the hostility of their 



PREFACE. XIX 

friends ; but, accustomed to think for 
himself, and having imposed a task on 
himself, he has scorned to compromise 
with fraud and falsehood. His labour 
will only be lost, if it fail to confer on 
many men more just and accurate modes 
of thinking on many important subjects, 
— if it do not uproot many mischievous 
prejudices, which retard the improvement 
of society, — and if it do not in some 
degree arrest the triumph of some of 
those primitive systems by which man- 
kind, in spite of their alleged civilization, 
continue to be deluded. Nevertheless 
he is not a cynic, — for it will be seen, that 
he is no niggard of praise wherever it 
is due; that he has extolled virtue 
in every form in which it can gladden 
the heart ; and that he has exalted all 
that is true, wherever and in whatever 
it serves to honour the understanding. 

After the greater part of this volume 
had been printed, the Author discovered 
that Isocrates, in an epistle to Nicocles, 



XX PREFACE. 

King of Cyprus, had composed adages for 
kings ; and, in another epistle, adages for 
subjects. He was so much struck with 
the coincidence of plan, that he prepared 
translations, and intended to annex them 
as an appendix, hoping at once to add to 
the value of the volume, and to shew the 
differences with which a Greek and an 
Englishman treated the same subjects at 
the distance of two thousand years. The 
circumstances, however, which are al- 
luded to in the postscript, led him at once 
to close his work ; but, if the spirit of his 
observations should gratify the public, he 
may be induced at some future period to 
print a second volume, containing other 
articles of his own in the same method of 
composition, with these articles of Iso- 
crates, and some others highly curious, 
though neglected. 

If the circumstances noticed in the 
postscript to this work had occurred be- 
fore this volume had been written, and 
almost printed, it never would have had 



PREFACE. XXI 

existence, for the Author as well as the 
people of England will probably have 
other cares than those of speculations in 
philosophy and morals ; and the luxuries 
of life and literature must, for many years, 
yield in Britain to the wants of the hour, 
and the warfare of self-interest. 

In the anticipations of the Author, the 
Sun of England's glory has set upon this 
generation. Whether ministers of more 
public spirit, and of more refined sympa- 
thy with the wants of the nation, can raise 
it again, is a question which time only can 
solve. Every conclusion of experience 
is adverse to the supposition. Credit is 
suspicion asleep, and suspicion has been 
so aroused, that it can scarcely be lulled 
again in regard to the same parties and 
the same country. A nation, like an in- 
dividual, or like a woman, cannot lose its 
character and afterwards re-enjoy it. We 
may exist like cattle on the soil, but never 
again in the same mutual confidence and 



XXU PREFACE. 

credit; and, by consequence, in equal ple- 
nitude of wealth and power. 

Let the parliament, the king, and the 
people, adjust this question with that 
minister who, in the hour of public 
phrenzy and despair, taunted the people 
in their distresses by ascribing to them 
sanative effects, and quoting the common- 
place adage, that "the evil would cure 
itself." 

It may be so, it may cure itself, but woe 
to the generation on which the cure is per- 
formed . It cannot be an age either of phi- 
losophy^ literature, or speculation ; but it 
will be in an iron age, in which the worst 
passions will triumph over virtue ; and in 
which struggles for wisdom will be lost in 
personal contests for bread and existence. 



CONTENTS 



, Page 

Golden Rules for Sovereign Princes . 1 

2. 
— t0 render Men honest, respecta- 
ble, and happy «... 38 

3. 
for Members of the British Legis- 
lation «.... 177 

4. 
— of Civil Liberty . . , 107 

5. 
in favour of Religious Liberty . 117 

6. 

to be remembered in the Study of 

Nature and Metaphysical Philosophy . . 130 

7. 
for Electors . . . .172 

8. 



f °r discriminating Truth in Human 

Enquiries lg9 

9. 

! relative to Political and Social 

Economy 221 

10. 
"~ ' for Magistrates . . . 244 



XXIV. 



CONTENTS. 



11. 

Golden Rules for Sheriffs 

12. 

„ — . . for Jurymen 

. 13. 
_. for Grand Jurymen 

14. 
for Journalists . 

15. 

for Bankers 

16. 

for Young Shopkeepers 

17. 

for Parish Priests 

18. 
. for Instructors of Youth 

19. 
The Author's Reasons for not Eating Animal 
Food 

20. 
Appendix 

21. 
Postscript to Golden Rules for Bankers 



Page 

256 
261 
276 
282 
307 
318 
324 
331 

347: 
357 

363 



ERRATA. 

Page 319, Art. VI. for " return," reed " returns." 

Page 360, line 3 from bottom, for "which," read "while." 

Vie Binder is requested to insert the fight pages E* in their proper 
place-. 



GOLDEN RULES 



OF 



SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 



GOLDEN RULES FOR SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 

I. 

Sovereign Princes should never forget that 
their office is created and upheld for the 
general benefit of the community, and that 
every Sovereign exists as such solely for the 
advantage of the nation. They must not 
imagine that the people exist for the sake of 
sovereigns, and to add to their power and 
splendour; but should remember that kings 
are appointed for the public good, and that 
they are themselves mere instruments of public 
convenience. 



^ SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

II. 

A sovereign should attach no personal im- 
portance to the circumstance of his happening 
to be the head of the state ; for every cone 
must have an apex, every sphere a centre, 
and every society some head — a necessity, of 
which the sovereign is the creature and pa- 
tient, not the creator and cause. 

in. 

Princes should not mistake the deference 
which is paid to them by the servile habits of 
mankind, and by the ambitious desire of ob- 
taining their favour, for any proof that the 
homage is created by any sense of real infe- 
riority in those who display it, or any actual 
animal superiority in the sovereign ; but should 
consider all such deference as arising from 
the desire to please, in the hope of profiting 
by the royal power and favour. 

IV. 

Every sovereign holds his station under 
the laws, customs, and constitution, of the 
country ; and these he is, therefore, bound to 
respect and protect : and they should govern 
the king in the policy of his government, as 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 3 

much as the meanest of the people in the 
subjection of their conduct. 



The attention of princes should be chiefly 
directed to the welfare and happiness of those 
classes of their subjects who are least able 
to take care of themselves : a king of the 
nobility and gentry is sovereign but of a 
centum of his subjects ; while the nobility 
and gentry are best able to take care of 
themselves, and, in fact, demand less of the 
guardianship of the sovereign than the indus- 
trious and labouring classes. 

VI. 

To know the condition of his people, and 
to enable him to protect poverty against the 
oppressions of abused power and wealth, 
every sovereign should, as a sacred duty, re- 
ceive and peruse the petitions and represen- 
tations of the meanest of his subjects ; but, if 
the reception of them is personally inconve- 
nient, then every palace-gate should be pro- 
vided with a letter-box, of which the sovereign 
ought to keep a master-key ; and letters and 
petitions should be freely put into it, by all 

1 



4 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

who seek redress from the power, informa- 
tion, and influence, of the sovereign. 

VII. 

The character of a sovereign is determined 
by that of his ministers; these, therefore, 
ought to be selected according to their abi- 
lity, and promoted according to their in- 
dustry, fidelity, and integrity. The sovereign 
who, from any consideration, continues an 
unworthy minister in office, ceases to be duly 
considerate either of the benefit of his people 
or of the honour of his throne. 

VIII. 

It is the business of the sovereign to assign 
the duties of his ministers ; to take care that 
they embrace every interest of his subjects ; 
to distribute them in such manner that no 
one may have too much to perform ; and, by 
classing the petitions and complaints of his 
subjects, to determine which service of the 
state is inefficiently or properly performed. 

IX. 

A sovereign should constantly recollect, that 
it is the sole obiect of his ministers to enrich 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. O 

themselves, and aggrandize their families and 
connexions; and that these ulterior objects 
are the stimulants of all their exertions, how- 
ever varied or specious; — for no minister is 
integrated with the state, like the sovereign ; 
and, though the love of power and temporary 
notoriety may stimulate one in ten, and the 
ambition of doing good one in a thousand, yet 
the primary and the governing motive is the 
means of personal gratification, afforded by 
increase of wealth and social rank. 

x. 

A sovereign should be aware that the neces- 
sary and desirable immutability of laws is 
always at variance with the temporary advan- 
tages sought by men in office, and all subor- 
dinate agents of power; while it also thwarts 
their passions, and limits their display of au- 
thority. The sovereign may himself be just, 
amiable, and yielding to the spirit and forms 
of the law, but not so his numerous delegates, 
who may display every variety of bad as well 
as good character : it behoves him, therefore, 
to watch these agents, and apply to them, as a 
test, the re-action which their conduct produces 
among his subjects ; for oppression begets 



O SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

resistance, and these, in society, are like action 
and re-action in nature. Nevertheless, there 
may be refractory subjects, the pest of worthy 
magistracy; but,, whenever any contest arises, 
the sovereign should beware of the false co- 
lourings by which men in office, from the 
highest to the lowest, sustain one another; 
and he should be alive to the conviction, that 
some mal-administration, to be corrected by 
his prompt exertion, may be as likely to be 
the cause of disaffection, as the ungovernable 
spirit of a subject. 

XL 

As ministers have not, like sovereigns, a 
permanent, hereditary, and transmitted, family 
interest in the state, the chief security of the 
people against their rapacity and abuse of 
power is the vigilance of the sovereign, his 
systematic reception of the complaints of the 
people, and his inflexibility in discarding the 
unworthy from his employment and confidence ; 
for the sovereign who is indifferent to the 
conduct of his ministers, delivers over his 
people, under the bonds of law and the duties 
of allegiance, to the temporary domination of 
selfish ministers, and deprives them of that 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 



safeguard which they possess in the sove- 
reign's independence of all motives beyond 
the love of his subjects and the glory of his 



name and reign. 



XII. 



But, while a constant jealousy should be 
exerted, by a good sovereign, to prevent his 
ministers from taking advantage of his sub- 
jects' necessary submission to power, the 
sovereign ought to stimulate virtuous anc 
faithful service, by honouring and liberally re- 
warding merit in his ministers and servants ; 
though he should never lose sight of the impor- 
tance of making accurate discriminations, — for 
honours are merely titular, and cease to be 
received and regarded as such, if the un- 
worthy are confounded with the worthy in 
their distribution, and if they are not reserved 
and bestowed only on unequivocal virtue and 
acknowledged merit. 

XIII. 

As the office of a king is active and exe- 
cutive, and the wisdom and justice of every 
neasure depends on discriminations founded 
on truth, and not on the sophistry and misre- 
presentation by which the ears of Princes 



8 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

are commonly abused, so every wise sove- 
reign, who is duly anxious about his own 
reputation and that of his throne, should, on 
personal questions, submit any case of 
difficulty separately to half a- dozen per- 
sons of sound judgment, and be guided 
by their opinions, formally given in writing. 
Collective opinions of councils are deceptive, 
owing to the influence of individuals, to the 
effect of specious and often shallow eloquence, 
and to the reserve by which the whole truth is 
too frequently qualified by good manners, habi- 
tual deference, and personal delicacy. 

xiv. 

The sovereign who, from indolence or 
fear, permits one class of his subjects to 
oppress another, or any party to assume the 
authority of the state, and monopolize its 
power and patronage, is unworthy of his 
dignity, and compromises his name, character, 
and station. The territorial interests should 
not be preferred to the commercial, nor the 
commercial to the territorial ; masters should 
not be encouraged to oppress their workmen 
and servants; the rich should not be allowed 
to oppress the poor; and parties, who pro- 
fess a superabundance of obsequious loyalty, 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 9 

should not be preferred in public employments 
to those who are too independent to be either 
obsequious or dishonest. 

xv. 

Every politic sovereign should occasionally 
visit the distant portions of his empire, receive 
the petitions of his people on the spot, and 
enquire into and rectify all abuses and errors 
in the administration of the local govern- 
ments : and other parts, or distant colonies, 
which he does not examine in person, should 
be visited by trusty commissioners, within 
every seven years, with authority to enquire 
and report relative to mal-administration, 
errors of policy, oppressive operation of laws, 
and other subjects of dissatisfaction in the 
people. 

XVI. 

Every considerate sovereign should special ly 
enquire into the provisions for abject and 
helpless poverty, and the condition of suffe- 
rers under the law, — who, in gaols and other 
receptacles, are deserted by all, and left to 
the discretion of such inferior officers as are 
often destitute of feeling and sympathy; for 

b2 



10 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

which purpose, he should, once in three or 
seven years, appoint commissioners of bene- 
volent men to visit the poor-houses and gaols 
of his kingdom, and report on cases of parti- 
cular objects, and on abuses of management. 

XVII. 

In the selection of representatives of his 
own authority, a wise sovereign should be 
specially cautious that they are men of virtu- 
ous and benevolent character; and this obser- 
vation applies particularly to all expounders 
of the law, as judges and presiding officers 
in courts of law,— and to all executors of the 
law, as sheriffs, and magistrates generally : 
wisdom itself in such persons will not, in 
practical effects on the people, atone for 
sternness of temper, — nor any other qualities, 
for the want of integrity and benevolence. 

XVIII. 

As it is the glorious prerogative of sove- 
reigns to be able to ameliorate the operation 
of the laws, and as laws are made for extreme 
cases of turpitude, and the highest punish- 
ment assigned for specific crimes, so the 
sovereign should apply his feelings of personal 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES, II 

compassion to all crimes committed under 
circumstances which admit of excuse or pal- 
liation ; and bearing in mind that, as the state 
has done its duty in assigning the punishment 
and effecting the conviction, so the mitigation 
is an affair of personal feeling in the sovereign, 
with which the opinion of no minister, or third 
party, ought, on any pretence, to be allowed 
to interfere. 

XIX. 

If a sovereign derive his power from here- 
ditary title, and has been educated in his 
station, he is too often as utterly ignorant of 
the social relations of man to man, and of the 
passions and wants of the population over 
whom he is placed, as a blind man of colours, 
or a Chinese of Europeans, or a European of 
Japanese: as soon as he arrives at years 
of discretion, it should, therefore, be his sedu- 
lous care to divest his mind of the false im- 
pressions arising from viewing society through 
a distorted medium, and from an unfavour- 
able position ; and he should study human 
nature on its own general level, either by 
means of books which treat of the details of 
men's pursuits, or by travelling and mingling 
with society incognito. 



12 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 



XX. 

The reasoning faculties of an hereditary 
sovereign may be sufficiently developed by the 
incidents of the circle in which he moves ; but, 
as every animal power is improved by exer- 
cise, and the reasoning powers are perfected, 
like the muscular, by exertions of unremitting 
labour, which princes are not called upon to 
make, so every prince should habitually defer 
to the judgment of men of experience, whose 
faculties have been forced into exertion ; and 
should suspect, as base flatterers, all those who 
extol his own superior wisdom and pre- 
eminent vigour of intellect. Society may be 
compared to a wheel, the successive ranks in 
one, being, in numbers, like the progressive 
circles from the axle to the periphery ; the 
circumstance of position neither changes the 
material nor improves it, but, on the contrary 
the exertion, or action and re-action, of every 
part, is as the distance from the centre, — or, 
maintaining the analogy, the intellectual vigour 
of the several gradations (opportunities of 
information being alike) will generally be as 
the distance from the centre. 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 13 

XXI. 

The ordinary trappings of royalty were 
invented in barbarous ages, to impress the 
superstitions vulgar ; but, as knowledge spreads 
faster than improvements in means of perso- 
nal ornament, so these lose their power of 
fascination ; and a sovereign in a brilliant 
dress, or expensive procession, rises no higher 
in the estimation of a civilized people than a 
dramatic hero in a stage pageant. In such 
displays, sovereigns should not excuse the 
indulgence of their personal vanity by the 
selfish sophistry that they thereby circulate 
their subjects' money; for those from whom it 
is taken, had it not to spare, and it would be 
likely to be used by them with quite as 
much advantage to the community as by the 
sovereign. 

xxu. 

Though the laws of God forbid man to 
shed man's blood, and charge us to commit 
no murder, yet the necessity of defending a 
country against foreign intrusion renders it 
justifiable to repel force by force, and, if ne- 
cessary, to kill the assailants : hence, the 
usages of society have placed, in the hands of 



14 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

kings, the power of conducting the public 
defence ; and, for that particular purpose, have 
considered murders as no crime. This license 
to commit homicide extends, however, no 
further than to wars strictly of self-defence ; 
and it behoves a sovereign, who would not be 
considered as a lawless murderer, and as such 
be held in detestation by the wise and good, 
never to embark in wars of speculative or pro- 
blematical origin, — wars of calculation or 
policy, depending on his fallible judgment, — 
or wars for purposes of expected aggrandise- 
ment, or increase of territory. 

XXIII. 

A sovereign should bear in mind that, as 
there is no glory in homicide, and that, as he 
himself consigns all wilful murderers to the 
public executioner, so he himself deserves a 
similar fate, and is even more ignominious, 
if, without some urgent cause which admits 
of no equivocation, he employs forces, entrusted 
to him solely for the public defence, against 
other nations, — by which his own subjects are 
compelled, by their allegiance, to commit mur- 
ders, or submit to be murdered ; and he must 
never forget, that, in the estimation of wise 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 15 

men, his victories, in an unjust and groundless 

contest, will be attended with no glory, — his 
soldiers and seamen be ranked as hired assas- 
sins, — and himself answerable for all the 
miseries, horrors, and murders, resulting from 
the pride, obstinacy, or passion, which misled 
him at the outset of the contest, 

XXIV. 

Sovereigns should bear in mind that, if the 
country which they govern is populous and 
powerful enough to defend itself, or respec- 
table enough to form defensive alliances with 
other nations for the common security, no 
extension of territory is of any advantage to 
their own subjects; for subjects live in fami- 
lies, and are not severally affected by the num- 
ber united under one sovereign ; and, there- 
fore, any passion in favour of extended domi- 
nion is either a vice or weakness in the mind 
of the sovereign, or a crafty pretence of his 
ministers to add to their power, influence, 
and patronage. 

xxv. 

Sovereigns ought never to adopt the atro- 
cious maxim — that the supposed goodness of 



16 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

the object to be achieved justifies any means 
of accomplishing it, — and that, having indefi- 
nite power in their control, they may lawfully 
exert it, without regard to mischief and misery, 
in the hope of accomplishing a design which 
they consider ultimately meritorious. This is 
the maxim of crime in every stage, from him 
who commits petty larceny, to the midnight 
murderer and hired assassin; and it has been 
the cause of most of the calamities of man- 
kind, of all the atrocities of cabinets, and all 
the ignominy which covers the memory of so 
many sovereigns. That which cannot be ac- 
complished by fair, just, and lawful, means, 
should never be attempted ; for the glory of 
success will be extinguished by the means, 
and the disgrace of possible failure will be 
indelible. 

XXVI. 

A sovereign should always bear in mind 
that his subjects are rational beings; and that, 
although a large proportion of them may be 
precluded, by their daily occupations, from 
duly appreciating the policy of the state, yet 
great numbers, who are in the habit of influ- 
encing the opinions of others, estimate and 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES, 17 

understand his conduct, and that of his mini- 
sters, with perfect intelligence: merely tem- 
porary purposes, therefore, can be achieved 
by any system of deception, or by any cun- 
ning inventions to mislead, delude, and entrap 
a nation into measures not bottomed in justice 
and reason. In important cases, a re-action 
will take place unfavourable to the honour of 
the sovereign, and sometimes disastrous to 
the state; and it should never be forgotten 
that the necessity for adopting any system of 
deception or falsehood, is a palpable proof of 
, the unworthiness and baseness of any measure 
which stands in need of support by means 
which are fraudulent and ignominious. 

XXVII. 

Sovereigns should, above all things, respect 
the liberties of their subjects, for on this de- 
pends their security, and on their security 

| depends their industry and the prosperity of 
the state. None will sow, if they do not 
expect to reap ; and none will labour, but in 

jthe confidence of enjoying the usual reward. 

'Liberty, at the same time, is perfectly compa- 
tible with the wise exercise of sovereign power. 
It is not tolerance or license, but certainty 



18 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

and impartiality ; not the looseness or laxity 
of laws, but their precision, and their equal 
and impartial administration, which constitutes 
a state of liberty. A sovereign of a nation 
governing it by known laws, fairly applied to 
all his subjects, is like the God of Nature, 
who effects every purpose by immutable laws, 
and causes all progressive phenomena to 
succeed with such unvarying regularity, that 
the manifestation of his power, and the liberty 
of action among its creatures, are perfectly 
compatible. The example of God's govern- 
ment in subservience to general laws, adminis- 
tered without respect to persons, — and which 
mode of government produces such a wonder- 
ful system, — ought therefore to be imperative 
on sovereigns of nations; and from similar 
causes of confidence and security, will result 
such degrees of industry and exertion, as will 
produce private happiness, public prosperity, 
and national glory, — social perfections, akin to 
the perfections of nature, under the similar 
government of Providence. 

XXVIII. 

Sovereigns are tyrants whenever they ad- 
minister the laws, or distribute honours and 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 19 

promotion, under the influence of personal ha- 
tred or partiality, — when they make new laws, 
and confer on them a retrospective and un- 
foreseen effect, — or when they are parties in the 
formation of laws which confer undue advan- 
tages on one class of their subjects over ano- 
ther class. They are also tyrants when- 
ever they deprive their subjects of any security 
against bad sovereigns or wicked ministers, 
by which deprivation their subjects are ex- 
posed to the discretion of fools and the mercy 
of knaves. Tyranny commences when the cer- 
tainty, confidence, and security, of subjects 
cease; and these sentiments of subjects de- 
pend on the impartial rewards of merit, on 
the public preference of virtue over vice, on 
the equality of the laws, and on a fair, equi- 
table, and honest, administration of them, 
which does not render them traps to the un- 
wary, nor give to wealth and power undue 
j advantages over poverty and weakness. 

XXIX. 

As a sovereign who is in possession of re- 
j venues sufficient to gratify every desirable 
| indulgence, and with power to reward services 
i and carry the laws into execution, requires no 



20 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

higher prerogatives, and can, in truth, enjoy 
no higher, with advantage either to himself or 
the community ; so he never need be jealous 
of any securities enjoyed or sought by the 
people, which do not actually encroach on his 
necessary powers. He ought, therefore, to 
view with liberality, and even with respect, 
any exertions of public-spirited persons who 
seek to improve and guard the securities of the 
people against abuses of power ; and he should 
beware of the crafty misrepresentations with 
which his ear is in danger of being poisoned 
by ministers and minions, whose ascendency 
may be endangered by such opposition: for, 
although faction may sometimes assume the 
mask of public spirit, yet the true test of dis- 
crimination is the reality of the grievances, 
and the true and wise remedy, their investi- 
gation and removal. — Patriotism never be- 
comes dangerous, except when public opinion 
is outraged by opposition to just pretensions; 
and the greatest enemies of a sovereign are 
those who advise him to maintain a grievance, 
till the nation, in embodying itself against the 
grievance, embodies itself also against the 
sovereign. 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 21 

XXX. 

The strength of kings is the justice of their 
government, the purity of their private lives, 
and the consequent love of their subjects. 
Kings, who have died in exile or ignominy, 
have been those who relied on the desperate 
stake of military adherence; and who, con- 
fiding in the delusive strength of armies, felt 
justified in setting public opinion at defiance: 
for, those who suffer themselves to be 
hired in support of a bad cause, may easily be 
corrupted in support of a better; and it is 
less difficult to lead many millions by their 
affections, than to conquer the hatred and 
intrigues of a single thousand. 

XXXI. 

Sovereigns ought to choose their personal 
confidants and social friends from among 
those who affect no political power, and who 
forbear to solicit favours for themselves or 
connexions; and, if a sovereign is not so 
fortunate as to meet with forbearing and 
disinterested persons worthy of his personal 
intercourse, he should keep at a distance those 
who have no pretensions in public charac- 
ter or useful service, and yet seek to avail 



22 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

themselves of the ties of personal familiarity, 
to compromise his honour and his duty to the 
public, which demands that no exertion of his 
power should be made by him as a private 
man, but as the head of the state, from public 
motives, capable of justification and explana- 
tion to the whole world. 

XXXII. 

Subjects who yield ready obedience to the 
will and authority of a sovereign, withhold the 
same loyalty from any fellow-subject, and are 
jealous and impatient of the undue ascendency 
of any individual in the favour and confidence 
of the sovereign ; nothing, therefore, is more 
dangerous to the security of thrones, than the 
sovereign's yielding to the influence or con- 
trol of any personal favourite, and his con- 
ferring on such favourite the credit of those 
powers, graces, and acts, which ought to pro- 
ceed alone from the unbiassed will of the 
sovereign. 

XXXIII. 

Princes should always be watchful that 
their weaknesses, foibles, or indulgencies, as 
men, do not bring discredit on their state and 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 23 

authority, and sink them in public opinion ; 
and for this purpose they ought studiously to 
save appearances, never violate the preju- 
dices of virtue by public displays of vicious 
practices, and in that respect never set public 
opinion at defiance :-— for virtue is stronger and 
more lasting than the throne, and no power 
is secure which has lost the respect and 
mental homage of those whose submission is 
its foundation. 

xxxiv. 
As sovereigns have the passions and pro- 
pensities of other men, and means of indulging 
them, which are pampered and encouraged by 
sycophants and flatterers, they ought to con- 
sider that their elevated position in society 
| counteracts their power of indulgence, byren- 
jdering them objects of conspicuous notice; 
and that animal gratifications, which sink 
even private men to the level of brutes, be- 
come, in princes, odious public vices, subjects 
| of vulgar commentary, and too often objects 
! of mischievous imitation; while, as sovereigns 
; draw their revenues from the industry of the 
| people, these contribute with reluctance in 
| aid of notorious profligacy, and feel scanda- 
i 



24 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

lized in having a head who is a by-word 
of contempt, and a warning instead of an 
example. 

XXXV. 

A sovereign who respects his own glory, 
and who is desirous of wielding his power to 
advantage, should interest himself about liv- 
ing merit beyond the purlieus of his court ; 
and it ought never to be the stigma of his age 
that any man of extraordinary genius in 
literature or the arts, or any exemplary cha- 
racter in acts of virtue and benevolence, 
lived in poverty, and died in despair and want; 
while nothing would be more easy than to 
ascertain, from time to time, the pretensions of 
contemporary merit, and partake its glory 
by effective patronage ; for the fame even of 
kings is subordinate to that of great genius ; 
and, in referring to the age of Homer or Plato, 
we forget all the proud dynasties who flou- 
rished in their time. 

xxxvi. 

A sovereign, to be beloved by his subjects, 
must identify himself with them, respect 
their predilections and customs, consult their 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 25 

interests and happiness ; be often visible to 
them ; easy of access to the proper authorities ; 
free in his carriage ; courteous in his lan- 
guage; and affable in his general demeanour. 
The name and rank of king will confer full- 
ness of effect on these qualities moderately 
displayed ; and a king, as such, may always 
calculate on the acclamations of his people, 
with very slight restraints on his passions, and 
moderate concessions to their prejudices and 
predilections. 

XXXVH. 

A sovereign should be duly sensible of 
the extensive influence of his actions, and of 
the constant dependence of great numbers on 
his movements and conduct ; he ought, there- 
fore, to discipline himself into habits of regu- 
larity; to be subject himself to the despo- 
tism of time, paying respect to those who 
respect him, by keeping his engagements 
with unvarying punctuality. Habit deprives 
regularity of its irksomeness ; and due eco- 
nomy of time will enable princes to be exact, 
without neglecting business, or killing horses, 
to overtake moments which had been frivo- 
lously wasted. 



26 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

XXXVIII. 

It is alone sufficient glory for a man to be 
sovereign of a nation, and he can add nothing 
to it by the transienfsplendour of his palaces, 
his attire, or his retinue ; and every display 
of this factitious nature will be considered by 
mankind as an attempt to delude by the sha- 
dow, instead of conferring the substance, and 
as the gratification of a little mind and a 
vain-glorious spirit. New palaces should not 
be built, nor old ones enlarged, till all the 
cottages of industry are worthy the residence 
of human beings in a civilized country. 

xxxix. 
Pride, the vice of upstarts, will seldom 
degrade an hereditary sovereign ; and it must 
have been a fabulous libel on Philip of Mace- 
don, to allege that he found it necessary to 
keep a monitor to exclaim, " Remember, 
Philip, thou art mortal!" Every inspiration 
of air, every animal want, every submission 
to the eternal powers of nature, every act of 
receiving sustenance, every twinge of pain, 
and every night's oblivion of sleep, must 
operate as constant correctives of any false 
and foolish assumptions of arrogance, conceit, 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 27 

and pride, which may possess and intoxicate 
weak, childish, and imbecile princes. 

XL. 

The word of a prince should be his bond, 
and the pledge of his honour be held sacred ; 
for nothing can render him so contemptible as 
evasions, equivocations, and falsehoods ; or 
any conduct which leads his subjects to con- 
sider him otherwise than as a standard of inte- 
grity in all his transactions, and as the per- 
sonification of truth and honour, of which the 
usages of society consider him at once the 
guardian and fountain. 

XLI. 

Ingratitude, and forgetfulness of services, 
are crimes often chargeable on courts and 
princes, owing to the rapid succession of 
events, and the importunities of new suitors, 
by which former circumstances are obliterated, 
and remote services forgotten. Princes should, 
however, be made aware that their creditors 
for services, or promises, have as tenacious 
memories as creditors in matters of account, 
though the courtesies of expectants may ren- 
der them less openly clamorous ; and, there- 



28 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

fore, to protect themselves against charges of 
ingratitude, every sovereign, who desires to 
do his duty, ought to keep a faithful register 
of names, services, and promises, and consult 
this record as often as opportunities arise of 
filling up vacant appointments, or distributing 
the honours of the state. And this register, 
so intimately connected with the obligations 
of the crown, ought to be transmitted by 
every prince to his successor, and by him be 
respected as a solemn legacy of duties to be 
performed. 

XLII. 

To shield a sovereign against the inordinate 
expectations of persons who have rendered 
any service to himself, or the state, and to 
correct the delusions under which many ex- 
pectants become victims, it is advisable to 
refer, whenever desired, all such claims to 
the arbitration of honourable men under the 
same forms as those by which awards are 
made in private disputes ; but, to secure sa- 
tisfactory decisions, lawyers ought never to 
be employed as arbitrators, or quibbling will 
supersede justice ; nor mere dependents on 
government, or the claimant will not be sa- 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 29 

tisfied, and the design of the reference be 
defeated. 

XLIII. 

Every sovereign, who proposes that a ra- 
tional result should follow his arrangements, 
will beware that no commissions, societies, 
or corporations, are constituted, the members 
of which have internal power to fill up vacan- 
cies that arise in their own body; for the love 
of their own ascendency will determine them 
never to admit any associates but those who 
flatter them, and are their inferiors in intellect 
and character ; and, by consequence, after 
two or three renewals, or generations, all such 
self-elected bodies become a nuisance to the 
community, a caricature of authority, and a 
disgrace to the sovereign who so improperly 
constituted their body. 

XLIV. 

As every sovereign would wish that him- 
self and his hereditary successors should en- 
joy freedom of conscience in his communion 
with God, so he ought to permit no hierarchy 
to dictate to him in matters of religious faith, 



30 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

because such faith has no necessary connexion 
with the business of the state ; and the only 
obligation between a sovereign and his sub- 
jects, in their mutual relations as such, is their 
submission to the laws, which constitute the 
social compact: at the same time, it is the 
duty of the sovereign, for the moral govern- 
ment of the people, to sustain their religious 
institutions, and render religious instructors 
respectable and independent. 

XLV. 

As subjects are good and valuable in pro- 
portion as they are intelligent, and as reading 
is the key of knowledge, so every Sovereign 
should encourage institutions, which qualify 
all his subjects to acquire information : and, 
in like manner, he should anxiously promote 
establishments of learning and free discus- 
sion, through the press, on all subjects of 
public interest, or in any way connected with 
the public weal ; for the press is a monitor 
which, if free and unshackled, he may always 
consult for truths which will in no other way 
be heard in palaces ; while every sovereign 
should be aware that his ministers have the 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 31 

address to corrupt certain journals, and, con- 
sequently, he will never find in these the 
knowledge which he ought to seek. 

XLVI. 

As the renown of nations depends on their 
excelling in all those arts which honour the 
genius of man, so every sovereign should 
identify himself with the fine arts, in all their 
branches,— with discoveries, which tend to 
advance human nature, — and with literature? 
and all productions of genius. He ought to 
confer personal distinctions on eminence, in 
each branch ; and to seek it, and not wait for 
its obtrusion ; for real genius is retired, and 
possesses pride sui generis. The importance 
to sovereigns of an alliance with the arts, and 
with literature and the sciences, is proved by 
the renown of Pericles, of Lorenzo di Me- 
dici, and of Louis XIV; while but a fiftieth 
of a king's income, time, and public distinc- 
tions, would be sufficient to render him an 
efficient and celebrated patron. 

XLVII. 

Custom blinds sovereigns, as well as other 
men; and reason often sleeps, if any esta- 



32 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

blished usage, however bad, promotes the 
means and interests of statesmen. Hence it 
is, that benevolent and patriotic sovereigns 
do not consider the intense sufferings of indi- 
viduals who, without suitable indemnity from 
the common public purse, are unjustly drag- 
ged into the public service, and then, to sustain 
an original wrong, subjected to coercive and 
severe codes of law. The king's service, in 
consequence, instead of being the most ho- 
nourable, as it truly is, generally becomes 
irksome, odious, and ignominious; and the 
king's name so compromised, that a public- 
spirited sovereign ought to change his minis- 
ters, till he finds a set who are competent to do 
equal justice to all his subjects, mariners as 
well as landsmen, and thereby rendering his 
service as desirable and advantageous as ho- 
nourable and glorious. 

XLVIII. 

If his duties are performed with effect, a 
sovereign will find that a kingdom of narrow 
limits will fully employ his time, and render 
it wholly unnecessary and undesirable to en- 
large its boundaries by conquest; he will 
have enough to do to render nature available 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 33 

in meeting the wants and luxuries of the peo- 
ple, to keep their passions in subjugation, to 
assuage the rancour of those parties which their 
imperfect reason, and the strife of self-inter- 
est, create ; while he will sometimes be obliged 
to endeavour to render them happy, in spite of 
themselves. 

XLIX. 

Princes, who are discrete enough to seek 
counsel of others, should beware of men who 
give agreeable, rather than honest, opinions ; 
who flatter when they ought to serve ; who en- 
deavour to find arguments in support of the 
predilections or prejudices of the sovereign, 
instead of frankly and boldly stating the whole 
truth; for such fawning and time-serving 
counsellors are more dangerous to the honour 
of a throne than its professed enemies. But, 
on the other hand, a sovereign should have 
discrimination enough to value honest counsel, 
magnanimity enough to forgive and reward it, 
and firmness enough to respect and follow it. 
The sovereign, who prefers flattering to honest 
counsel, and who is piqued by contradiction, 
will never hear the truth, and will be misled 
in every important measure of his reign. 

c2 



34 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 



Sovereigns may always acquire perfect 
knowledge of human nature, its passions, 
intrigues, and pursuits, by attendance on 
dramatic performances ; while they effectually 
and attractively inculcate the finest lessons of 
practical morality, and expose the artifices of 
vice and the struggles of virtue. The stage 
is morality in action, and the progress of a play 
is a picture of life. Theatres may be vi- 
cious by their abuses, but the fault is in the 
police, not in the drama. Companies of play- 
ers are, therefore, proper appendages of every 
royal household ; and, in many countries, 
theatres are wisely constructed under the 
roofs of palaces, as studies for sovereigns. 
Nothing, at the same time, tends more effec- 
tually to civilize and instruct subjects, and 
improve general manners, than dramatic per- 
formances ; and they ought, in these views, 
to be munificently upheld, as part of the 
internal policy of every wise and liberal 
government. 

LI. 

Sovereigns should vigilantly protect their 
subjects against the egotism of the interest 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 35 

and vanity of particular classes. They should 
keep down the pretensions and rapacity of 
pettifoggers in the law ; the assumptions of 
daring empirics in medicine ; and the still 
more disgraceful obtrusions on society of reli- 
gious fanatics, whose blasphemous inspira- 
tions and revelations mislead the poetical, 
imaginative, and dreaming part of the brain. 
Regulation will, however, answer better than 
prosecution and penal laws. Education, learn- 
ing, and character, should be the tests of 
these professions; but examinations should 
be conducted by umpires, named by autho- 
rity, and by the party; and, in regard to 
vulgar fanaticism, whenever the alleged in- 
ward spiritual grace is not supported by out- 
ward visible signs, — such as the apostolic gift' 
of tongues, and the power of working mira- 
cles, — they should, as a duty to the ignorant 
and credulous, be unceremoniously treated as 
lunatics, and sent to Bedlam, till they are 
cured; or as wolves in sheep's clothing, seek- 
ing whom they may devour, be disciplined 
into honesty in the house of correction- 

LII. 

As all the struggles of subjects are to live 



36 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

by each other's labour, and it is the anxiety of 
each to perform the least, and make others 
work for him, so half the contests and troubles 
of subjects relate to questions about the re- 
presentative of labour or property ; hence 
arise systems and codes of law about debtors 
and creditors, and, under various pretexts, 
men are enabled to inflict injuries and heap 
wrongs upon one another; while legislators, 
misled by wily lawyers, who generally ob- 
tain the property of all litigating debtors and 
creditors, are unable or unwilling to adopt 
such measures as shall enable debtors and 
creditors to settle their own concerns without 
the intervention of law ; it is, therefore, the 
imperative duty of every humane sovereign 
to exert his paramount influence on this sub- 
ject, and to deprive lawyers of the power of 
devouring the people, and debtors and cre- 
ditors of facilities for worrying one another. 

L1II. 

Jn their domestic policy, sovereigns should 
be aware that society advances by progressive 
steps, that family dependencies and systems 
of local industry, generated by time, consti- 
tute the aggregation of the people, all of 



SOVEREIGN PRINCES. 37 

whom are thus connected by habits, predilec- 
tions, and prejudices: hence the necessity of a 
settled policy, and the allowing of industry to 
mature its own fruits; for man in society is 
like the vegetation of a garden, which will 
yield only if undisturbed ; and a sovereign, 
who meddles needlessly with his subjects' in- 
dustry, and with the course of society, which 
matures and adjusts its own relations, is like 
a gardener, who often transplants his fruit- 
trees ; for one will not prosper, and the other 
will not bear fruit. 

LIV. 

The infinitely varied pursuits, passions, in- 
terests, and characters, of subjects, — the mu- 
tual action and re-action of their industry, 
— and the sympathies and discordances of 
their ambition, opinions, and principles, — ren- 
der the task of a good sovereign at once com- 
plicated and unceasing ; while these circum- 
stances call on him, and his ministers, to 
qualify all their decisions by unimpassioned 
discrimination, and to balance all their actions 
by a cautious and unrelaxed attention to the 
immutable principles of benevolence, mercy, 
truth, and justice. 



38 



GOLDEN RULES TO RENDER MEN HO- 
NEST, RESPECTABLE, AND HAPPY. 



Civilized Society is an artificial and factitious 
state, in which the ingenuity of man endea- 
vours to supply the defects and imperfections 
of his natural state, by as perfect arrangements 
as possible and practicable ; but, as these are 
created by a conflict of feelings and interests, 
in which the crafty rule the simple, and con- 
test with one another, so society becomes a 
warfare of its members, to ameliorate which, 
is the object of laws and morals. 

ii. 

The primary sources of social warfare are 
wealth, or the means of purchasing and enjoy- 



SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 39 

ing other men's labour, and living in ease and 
luxury; power, or the means of influencing the 
law by the will of the individual ; and social 
distinction, or the acquirement of titles of 
assumed honour and dignity. The attaining 
of these objects constitutes all the cares, anxie- 
ties, and miseries of men, and a very small 
share of the happiness of a very small num- 
ber. 

in. 

Wealth, ambition, and learning, are phan- 
toms of the mind, similar, as to actual con- 
tact, to the will-o'-the-wisp, or the rainbow 
of nature. The avaricious are never rich 
enough, the ambitious desire to rise higher 
and higher, and the cyclopaedia is too bulky 
for the grasp of one life. Nevertheless, all 
are energies of healthy minds, if temperately 
exerted ; and it is excess, like that in wine, 
which constitutes their vice and disease. As 
practical rules, a man ought to be content, 
who, from indigence, has secured comfortable 
independence for his old age, or who has 
doubled his patrimony ; who has advanced two 
or three social steps over his former equals ; and 



40 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

who is wise enough to guard himself against 
superstition and imposture ; able to discover 
and assert truth ; and competent to fill up his 
hours of leisure, by reading the best authors 
with good intelligence and discrimination. 

IV. 

In society, character is the first, the second, 
and the ultimate quality. A man is never 
ruined who has not lost his character : while 
he who has lost his character, whatever be his 
position, is ruined, as to all moral and useful 
purposes. Envy and calumny will follow a 
man's success like his shadow ; but they will 
be powerless, if he is true to himself, and 
relies on his native energies to beat or live 
them down. Virtues may be misrepresented, 
but they are virtues still : and in vain will an 
industrious man be called an idler ; a sensible 
man, a fool ; a prudent man, a spendthrift ; 
a persevering man, a changeling ; or an honest 
man, a knave. The qualities are inherent, 
and cannot be removed by words, except with 
a man's own consent. At the same time, all 
calumniators thrice detected, ought to be 
banished as criminals, unworthy of the bene~ 



HONEST MEN. 41 

fits of the society of which, however power- 
less, they endeavour to be the pest and bane. 

v. 

Education, artifice, or erroneous reasonings ^ 
engender and sustain a variety of stimulants o 
action, which are incompatible with the tem- 
porary existence of man, and lead to strife, 
competition, and misery ; as the love of wealth, 
for its own sake, beyond the means of enjoy- 
ment or security; as the love of fame among 
beings who forget all in sleep and in death ; 
love of admiration among beings whose self- 
love absorbs every other consideration, and 
who seldom admire but to envy and to hate ; 
and love of titles, of rank and distinction, 
which are rendered worthless by their indis- 
criminate acquisition ; and love of show, for 
which they do but pillage the meanest of 
nature's productions, and merely display their 
personal vanity, in contempt of the labour 
which supplies the means. Wealth, fame, 
admiration, distinction, and indulgence, may 
be properly consequent on a virtuous life ; 
but nothing should be sacrificed to their 
attainment. 



42 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

VI. 

Do no act which you feel any repugnance 
to have seen or known by others ; for the neces- 
sity of being secret implies some vice in the 
act, or some error in the reasoning, which 
leads to its self-justification. 

VII. 

Do nothing to any sentient or suffering 
being which you would feel to be cruel or 
unjust towards yourself, if your being or situ- 
ations were changed : and mark that, although 
this rule is erroneously limited to the relations 
of man to man, and is therefore practised too 
often with a view to reciprocal advantage ; 
yet it is genuine virtue only, when practised 
towards those from whom no reciprocal ad- 
vantage can be derived, as when applied to the 
meanest animals, and to every helpless sentient 
object. 

VIII. 

To live and let live, applies to all social and 
physical relations : for the world is the com- 
mon property of all the beings who have been 
evolved by the progress of creative power, and 
all are necessary parts of a great and harmo- 



HONEST MEN, 43 

nious scheme, to which it is our duty to sub- 
mit ; while the happiness of all ought, as far as 
possible, to be rendered accordant with our 
own. 

IX. 

Hesitate, doubt, inquire, and if possible 
forbear, whenever your intention is dangerous 
or fatal to the welfare of another; for it 
is too late to correct an error of judgment 
after any mischief to another has been per- 
petrated. 



Give countenance to no slander relative to 
another in his absence ; and, if obliged to hear 
slanders, discharge your own responsibility by 
the early communication of them to the slan- 
dered : for the hearer of any slander, who 
takes no measures to procure its contradiction, 
and who, from any sinister motive, declines to 
bring the slanderer and slandered face to face, 
is an accessory, and as culpable as the pro- 
pagator ; while the baseness and mis- 
chief of slander would be rooted from society, 
if hearers forbore to be quiescent acces- 
sories. 



44 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 



XI. 

Beware of envy, and of a practice of de- 
tracting from the merit of those whom you 
have not the industry, the inclination, or the 
talent, to imitate ; for it is your duty either to 
admire or emulate others, or to be content 
with the station in which your birth, talents, 
or industry, have placed you. 

XII. 

Be as useful as possible in the social sphere 
which you fill : for a man in society does, not 
live for himself alone ; and, as he derives be- 
nefits from others, so he ought to confer them 
as often as he has the opportunity and the 
power. 

XIII. 

Remember that all wealth and grandeur is 
sustained by the industry and privations of 
others : for money is but the representative of 
products, and products are the results of la- 
bour, — thus, income from interest of money is 
drawn from the industry or privations of the 
borrower; that from rent, from the industry or 
privations of the tenant ; and that from manu- 



HONEST MEN. 45 

faeturing products, from the industry or pri- 
vations of the workman. 

XIV. 

Reward and encourage virtue in every sta- 
tion, and discountenance vice and bad pas- 
sions, however adventitiously exalted : for, 
unless the good draw a strong line between 
the worthy and the unworthy, and, by associa- 
tion and subscription, combine to sustain the 
adversity and the old age of virtue, unprinci- 
pled vice will eagerly trample it in the dust. 

xv. 

Avoid all those insanities of the human 
mind engendered by unwise authors and early 
errors, — such as the passion after posthumous 
fame, which can seldom be realized, and can 
never be felt, — as the love of wealth beyond 
the means of comfortable enjoyment, — as the 
love of renown among beings who forget you 
in sleep and in death, — as the love of military 
glory, excited to gratify the bad passions of 
weak princes and wicked ministers, — as the 
ambition after titles, which mean no more than 
the syllables of which they consist, — and, as the 
zeal of self-devotion in any cause of the hour, 



46 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

the object and use of which will be forgotten 
in a year, and laughed at by the next ge- 
neration . 

XVI. 

Seek wisdom in all things, that you may not 
be the dupe and slave of the craft and subtlety 
of others, that you may be enabled to play an 
independent part in society ; and search deeply, 
that you may avoid conceit, by knowing how 
little is known even by the most learned. 

XVII. 

Wisely exert yourself to belong to the age 
in which you live. An age is thirty years ; 
and most men above forty belong, from obsti- 
nacy, conceit, or inadvertency, to the previous, 
and not to the passing, age. Hence there is 
a constant war between their biootted and 
obsolete opinions, and the increasing intelli- 
gence and renovated taste of the rising gene- 
ration, while their authority and influence 
serve too often to obstruct truth ; conse- 
quently, knowledge and improvement are 
generally retarded for at least one whole age, 
and often for many, by the prejudices of edu- 
cation, and the difficulty of unlearning. 



j HONEST MEN. 47 

XVIII. 

Be not inconsistent in your expectations ; 
| and, having chosen your walk through life, 
! pursue it with patience, industry, and con- 
i tentment : thus, if superiority in knowledge is 
| your object, do not envy the accumulations of 
, your thrifty neighbour ; if wealth is your ob- 
ject, do not wonder that your character for 
knowledge, justice, and liberality, stands not 
so high as that of others ; and, if the reputa- 
tion of virtue is your ambition, you must 
govern your passions, practise forbearance 
without repining, and consult the interest of 

others as much as your own. 

■ 

XIX. 

Let scintillations of pride be corrected, by 
considering that you are mortal; that, only a 
few years ago, you were not, and in a few 
years hence, will not be ; and that an eternity 
preceded and will follow you, reducing your 
span of life to a point ; that your possessions, 
however vast, are but a speck on a little 
globe, which is itself but a point in the uni- 
verse; and that your bodily structure, your 
secretions, your mechanism, and your assimi- 
lations, are exactly the same as v those of all 

1 



48 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

other men, and that, if not the same, you would 
be diseased, or a monster; and remember that 
wisdom, manners, and virtue, constitute the 
only difference among human creatures. 

xx. 

Men should at all times respect the superior 
sensibility, delicacy, virtue, and fascinating- 
persons, of the female sex; whose weakness of 
frame ought to secure them sympathy and 
support; whose affections ought never to be 
sported with ; whose tenderness repays man for 
his labour in their service ; whose union in his 
interests affords him a trusty counsellor in 
moments of difficulty ; whose constancy attends 
him in adversity ; and whose solicitude supports 
him on the bed of sickness. 

xxi. 

An honest man, who seeks the reputation 
of wisdom, and who expects the sincere respect 
of his really sensible neighbours, will not lend 
himself to any mysterious faith, or supersti- 
tious practices on supernatural subjects, or on 
subjects unworthy of the free exercise of 
human reason and sound philosophy. If he is 
a dupe, he w r ill be despised for his weakness 



HONEST MEN. 49 

by those of whose opinion he would be proud ; 
and, if an hypocrite from motives of conveni- 
ence or interest, he will never be able to look 
into himself with self-satisfaction, while he 
will be despised by all men of discernment who 
penetrate his assumed character. 

XXII. 

Respect the means adopted by public social 
policy to subjugate the practices of the igno- 
rant and unthinking, by their hopes, fears, and 
superstitions ; for man, though a reasoning, is 
not a rational animal, and he is wrong a hun- 
dred times, for once that he is right: conse- 
quently, his moral practices in society, which 
are governed by his imperfect reason, his selfish 
craft, and his unruly passions, generally re- 
quire some influence even beyond ordinary 
nature, to render his association bearable. 

XXIII. 

Promote education, free enquiry, and truth; 
for untaught man is the patient of the circum- 
' stances by which he is surrounded, and the 
I mere creature of imitation, — a Mahometan 
! Turk, if born in Turkey ; a Siberian polytheist, 
! if born in Siberia ; or a protestant or popish 

VOL. I. D 



50 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

Christian, if born in Holland or Spain,— the 
faith, manners, and habits, of native country 
constituting individual character. To arrive 
at universal truth, to avoid the established 
errors of localities, and to become free from the 
continuous errors of previous ages, are, there- 
fore, the primary duties of all men who aspire 
to the attributes of wisdom. 

XXIV. 

Practise toleration towards the opinions and 
habits of fellow -creatures, each of whom is the 
passive instrument of his education and asso- 
ciations. Pity and teach, if your practices 
are unquestionably better ; but do not perse- 
cute or inflict punishment, either for igno- 
rance, or for errors in the formation of charac- 
ter arising from the vices of society, the pre- 
judices imbibed in youth, or the inattention 
of governments to public education. 

xxv. 
Beware of prosperity, for it seldom mends 
manners, while it creates more rancorous 
envy than solid friendship ; consequently, more 
prudence is required to maintain it than to 
acquire it. Beware of adversity, for credit 



HONEST MEN. 51 

once lost is seldom to be regained. A man 
rises, as in an inflated balloon, with an acce- 
lerated velocity ; but, if it burst, he falls with 
greater and fatal acceleration. Make good 
your position as you rise, and be in no haste to 
make a higher step ; remembering that, for 
one fortune that is gained by speculation, a 
thousand are lost ; while he, who seeks to get 
rich within a year, generally becomes insolvent 
or a convict within six months. Society, like 
nature, will not bear sudden transitions ; it 
works its stable wonders only by slow degrees. 

XXVI. 

The life of man in society is like the game 
of one, who sits down to play at cards. The 
hand dealt him is like the accidental position in 
which birth placed him ; and that is, in truth, 
a new birth, which changes his position in 
society. His game may be backward or for- 
ward, as he is weak or strong. If, in his early 
course, he waste his substance, or his trumps, 
his rivals will turn the game against him : if 
he finesse, he must calculate the chances : if 
he is weak, he will be the patient of the strong, 
without losing reputation : — but his chief dis- 
grace will be, the holding of good cards, and 



52 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

playing them badly, making false speculations, 
and losing the game. The morals also of 
cards and of life are the same : you must play 
your part without cheating or lying, with good 
temper and good manners, and pay your stake 
with honour. 

XXVII. 

The greatest foe of human happiness is 
pride and self-conceit. Men forget that their 
whole race, as well as every race of organized 
creatures, subsists by appropriating, in respi- 
ration, the momenta of the atoms of the atmo- 
sphere common to all : they forget that their 
whole race subsists alike by assimilating the 
same atoms of matter by processes exactly 
alike ; and with results exactly the same, 
except in cases of wealth and greater luxury, 
where the secretions are more foul, vitiated, 
and diseased : they forget the meanness of their 
procreation, their helpless infancy, their drivel- 
ling old age, the daily dispersion of their parts, 
and their ultimate decomposition and oblivion 
in the grave. 

XXVIII. 

All members of the human family should 



HONEST MEN. 53 

remember, that the human race is, as 
to time and nature, but as one totality; 
for, since every man and woman had two pa- 
rents, each parent two parents, and so on in 
geometrical progression, hence every indi- 
vidual, high or low, must necessarily be de- 
scended from every individual of the whole 
population as it existed but a few hundred 
years before, whether they were high or low, 
virtuous or abandoned ; while every procreative 
individual of the existing race must be the 
actual progenitor of the entire race which may 
exist at the same distance of future time. 
What motives for charity, for forbearing from 
injuries, for benevolence, for universal love ! 

XXIXJ 

Be tolerant in your intercourse with other 
men . Look more to the virtues, affections, and 
understandings of men, than to their figure, 
deportment, or pursuits. The former are in- 
herent sterling qualities, and the latter mere 
varieties of nature, education, and position. 
Men may be honest or intelligent, with persons 
and habits not to our taste; but to these we 
ought to accommodate ourselves. Jf, accord- 
ing to ordinary parlance, the heart is in the 



54 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

right place, you must overlook external varie- 
ties, or live at war with three-fourths of your 
species. 

XXX. 

Unless you have the courage to undertake 
the hopeless task of correcting errors and pre- 
judices, the confidence to set up your own 
opinions as standards of truth, and the forti- 
tude to endure martyrdom in the reproaches of 
vulgar minds, prudence suggests that you 
must conform to the practices of the society in 
which you live, and yield, at least, an external 
respect even to its foibles. You must dress 
as other men do, take part in their amuse- 
ments, conform to their customs, yield to their 
laws, and concede in trifles to them, if you 
expect them to concede to you in any thing ; 
for self-love, the soul of man and animals, is as 
operative in one as in another. 

XXXI. 

Society is a fabric of usurpations ; and, 
though many of them are necessary to its well 
being, yet they engender a perpetual social war 
of offence and defence. Property, the primary 
means of distinction, is the chief bone of con- 



HONEST MEN. 55 

tention. To be able to purchase the labour of 
others, and to avoid the evils of servitude and 
poverty, are the two objects of general strug- 
gle. Yet the wheel of fortune is constantly 
turning, and the rich of to-day may be the poor 
of to-morrow. It displays, therefore, a want of 
sympathy and foresight, that the rich do not 
more diligently exert themselves, while they are 
so, to relieve poverty from its terrors, and ren- 
der the comfort of the poor, and their own enjoy- 
ment, compatible with one another; for this 
compatibility is practically possible, if ear- 
nestly attempted, while it derogates from 
human reason that one thousand should be 
suffered to be positively wretched, in the 
hope that one may be enabled to assume an 
appearance of equivocal happiness. 

XXXII. 

The refined medullary system of man, and 
his mutual intercourse, create a reciprocity or 
sympathy in his feelings, which renders 
sympathetic animal his characteristic defini- 
tion ; the indulgence of these peculiar human 
sympathies being his highest gratification, 
and doing good, conferring happiness, and de- 
serving gratitude, his most exalted pleasures ; 



56 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

while no sufferings are so poignant as those 
twinges of conscience, which cross the solitude, 
and even hilarity, of those who indulge malig- 
nant passions, who inflict misery on others, 
and who, being deservedly despised, hate, in 
their turn, all mankind. 

XXXIII. 

The bed of sickness, with its increased 
sensibility of nerves, is a delicate test of man's 
conscience, and of self approbation or repro- 
bation. Requiring sympathy himself, he now 
sympathizes with others ; and, unable to direct 
his thoughts to external things, they are forced 
upon himself. Great is then his solace, and 
efficacious his medicines, if he has no other 
reflections than such as are supplied by his 
justice, liberality, and benevolence; but accu- 
mulated will be his sufferings, and dangerous 
the result, if crimes and misdeeds force them- 
selves at such a time on his mind ; while in 
any delirium of fever he will rave on those 
subjects, and, without vision, will often per- 
ceive, by the mere excitement of his brain, the 
spectres of the injured making grimaces before 
him. All medical men are aware of this real 
Heaven and Hell in the minds of their patients. 



HONEST MEN. 57 

XXXIV. 

If you would preserve your friends, do not 
measure their duties by your own wants, nor 
expect sacrifices founded on your own estimate 
of your own merits. Bargain with precision 
and foresight, and expect no more than its 
exact performance : if your bargain is not pre- 
cise, or is a bad one, blame your own want of 
prudence ; and, if concession is made, accept it 
as a boon, and do not claim or expect it as a 
right, founded either on your wants, or your 
improvident contract. 

xxxv. 

In seeking satisfaction for wrongs, consider 
your own strength, and that of your opponent. 
Some men are so entrenched in power, by 
social position and by wealth, that you add to 
an original injury by seeking reparation. 
Patience is then the only remedy ; and, as 
such public scoundrels will practise towards 
others as they have done to you, public indig- 
nation will, in due time, become your sure 
ally. In such cases, hypocrisy is almost a vir- 
tue, for the fall of a knave would be accelerated, 
if you could prevail on yourself to flatter his 

d2 



58 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

injustice, so as to encourage him to display his 
true character to others, whom he deceives. 

xxxvi. 

Patience, that is, forbearance, during a 
longer or shorter time, is the best remedy for 
many evils of life. Turns of fortune are par- 
ried by yielding with patience to a storm of 
adversity. The rancour of enemies is baffled 
by patiently for a time forbearing to push your 
fortune, or by playing a backward game. 
The injuries inflicted by enemies will, if borne 
with patience, be satisfied by reverses in their 
fortunes, by disease, or by seeing them carried 
to the grave : while a conflict would have 
wasted your own mind, time, and substance ; 
and, if you die before them, your desire of 
satisfaction will die with you. The Fabian 
system is as valuable in private life as in the 
campaigns of war. 

XXXVII. 

However men may desire to cover their 
animal feelings by fine words and phrases, 
and to disguise them by the arts and artifices 
of life, their basis is common animal nature, 
and the only apparent addition is in their am- 



HONEST iMEN. 



59 



bition in its various walks to rival one another. 
Our senses, our pains, our diseases, our eating 
and drinking, our eliminations, our respiration 
and sleeping, our sexual propensities, our love 
of offspring, our youth, maturity, and decrepi- 
tude, are all common to entire animal nature ; 
while the fact of reasoning by analogy from 
experience seems to be a cheap quality like- 
wise possessed by all sentient creatures. Pride 
may take alarm at this truth, but pride and 
truth are often at variance. In this instance, 
however, truth is useful by inculcating a 
lesson of universal sympathy. 

XXXVIII. 

When law is expensive, uncertain, and 
dilatory, honest men should prefer the arbitra- 
tion of mutual friends and neighbours, and 
surrender their passions to such controul. 
The best of all umpires is a jury, because they 
are indifferent, and obliged to be unani- 
mous; but juries are embarrassed by the 
sophistry of lawyers, and their decisions often 
entangled by forms and precedents. Private 
arbitration would be more valuable, if una- 
nimity were not obtained by absurd compro- 
mises arising out of personal deference ; but it 
would be an improvement, if two mutual 



60 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

friends merely nominated indifferent persons, 
and these nominees and their umpire made, 
in all cases, an unanimous decision, strictly 
governed by the equity of the case, con- 
clusive of the dispute, and no way mingled 
with abstract points of law. 

xxxix. 

Varied intellectual energy is the line of 
demarcation between animals in general; but 
knowledge constitutes the difference between 
man and man. We are slaves or masters, 
dupes or leaders, patients or agents, accord- 
ingly as we are ignorant or instructed. 
Knowledge, therefore, is power, in all social 
relations, and ignorance is weakness. The 
knowing are the craftsmen in politics and 
religion, or the rulers and the priests ; while 
the ignorant are their convenient subjects and 
liberal devotees. The education of the peo- 
ple ought, therefore, to be the first hope of 
those, who desire to see the rational emancipa- 
tion and moral improvement of the human 
race. 

XL. 

The irritability of the passions, and their 
want of due controul, constitute the sole dif- 



HONEST MEN. 61 

ference between gregarious and solitary 
animals. Flocks and herds are passive and 
good-tempered, while lions, tigers, &c. are so 
irascible and ferocious, as to be unable to 
associate : and the one endure each other's 
society, while the latter would, on slight 
grounds, tear each other in pieces. Men live 
in society like sheep and passive animals ; but 
their animosities prove that they are more 
of the tiger than the sheep ; hence, therefore, 
the necessity of strong laws, and a vigilant 
police, to prevent them from fighting and 
destroying one another. Indeed, when the 
laws are not binding, as in the case of differ- 
ent nations and distinct tribes, mutual destruc- 
tion appears to be their delight ; and, when 
not restrained by law, they appear to be as 
ferocious as wild beasts, not only towards 
other animals, but towards their own species. 
A public road, or street, is a constant exem- 
plification of the true character of men : the 
coachman drives over the horseman, the horse- 
man rides over those on foot; and, among 
pedestrians, the robust push the weak into 
the kennel, while both classes defraud, without 
scruple, the sweepers of street-crossings of 
the hard-earned products of their humble 
tenures. 



62 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

XLI. 

A benevolent man should take delight in 
making peace between contending individuals. 
The most rancorous hostility is often to be 
appeased by the kind offices of an interposing 
friend; and an explanation made in a liberal 
spirit, and by one resolved to do good, fre- 
quently terminates a suit which the law would 
render ruinous. Occasional ill success should 
never deter a man from becoming a peace- 
maker ; and ten sensible men of this description 
would effect more for social happiness than as 
many courts, and a hundred lawyers. A man 
who has appeased enmity and restored broken 
friendship in a dozen instances, is entitled, 
above all others, to a civic crown, or to the 
distinction of a star and riband. 

XL1I. 

If you are rich, and want to enjoy the 
exalted luxury of relieving distress, go to the 
Bankrupt Court, to the Court for Insolvent 
Debtors, to the gaols, the workhouses, and the 
hospitals. If you are rich and childless, and 
want heirs, look to the same assemblages of 
misfortune ; for all are not culpable who appear 
in the Bankrupt and Insolvent Lists ; nor all 



HONEST MEN. 63 

criminal who are found in gaols ; nor all 
improvident who are inmates of workhouses 
and hospitals. On the contrary, in these 
situations, an alloy of vice is mixed with virtue 
enough to afford materials for as deep trage- 
dies as ever poet fancied or stage exhibited ; 
and visitors of relief would act the part of 
angels descending from Heaven among men, 
whose chief affliction is the neglect of unthink- 
ing affluence. 

XLIII. 

When you behold a splendid equipage, ask 
not what sickly being fills it, but who suffers ; 
who contributes the sweat of rent, or the priva- 
tions of interest ; whose last-bed was seized ; 
who is pining in gaol for its support ! When 
you see a splendid banquet, consider the dying 
sufferings of the victims, the interesting feel- 
ings destroyed, the excess of pain over the 
possible pleasure, and the diseases lurking in 
the various dishes ! When you view a noble 
mansion, filled with gaiety and luxury, reflect 
on the privations of cottages, on the half- 
crown a-day on which adjacent families must 
subsist, on all the means by which the esta- 
blishment is sustained; and moderate your 



64 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

pleasures accordingly ! Remember always 
that, as there is a definite common stock, the 
excess of one is the necessary deficiency of 
another. 

LXIV. 

Marriage is a circumstance of life, which, 
in its actual course, involves the feelings and 
fortunes of human beings more than any other 
event of their lives. It is a connexion gene- 
rally formed by inexperience, under the blind- 
ness and caprice of passion; and, though these 
conditions cannot be avoided, as forming the 
bases of the connexion, yet it is so important, 
that a man is never ruined who has an inter- 
esting, faithful, and virtuous, wife ; while he 
is lost to comfort, fortune, and even to hope, 
who has united himself to a vicious and un- 
principled one. The fate of woman is still 
more intimately blended with that of her hus- 
band ; for, being in the eyes of the law and 
the world but second to him, she is the victim 
of his follies and vices at home, and of his ill 
success and degradation abroad. Rules are 
useless where passions founded on trifling as- 
sociations and accidents govern; but much 
mischief often results from fathers expecting 

6 



HONEST MEN. 65 

young men to be in the social position of old 
ones, and from present fortune being preferred 
to virtues; for industry and talent, stimulated 
affection, and fostered by family interests, 
soon create competency and fortune ; while 
a connexion founded on mere wealth, which 
is often speedily wasted by dissipation, 
habits of extravagance, and the chances of 
life, necessarily ends in disappointment, dis- 
gust, and misery.* 

XLV. 

It is the duty of all to resist oppressors as 
far as is prudent and practicable ; but parti- 



* As the fruition of nature, and the purposes of animal 
evolution, would be abortive without that propagation for 
which all things seem to grow and mature, and then decay ; so 
the human kind are subject to this general law of nature, 
while the conveniences and usages of society, and the com- 
plicated sentiments of the human brain, engender a multitude 
of sexual intrigues unknown to other animals. The natural 
excitements of both sexes are similar; but, as the personal re- 
sponsibility of children attaches to the female, hence arise 
the reserve, the caution, the prudence, the studied and habi- 
tual coldness, the prudery, the coyness, the coquetry, and all 
those shades of peculiar conduct characteristic of females, and 
engendered by passion, mingled with taste, fear, hope, com- 
parison, reflection, and calculation. These complications of 
feeling which qualify , in a general manner, the mutual advances 
of the sexes, are further diversified by personal preferences ; 



^6 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

cularly when they are the public agents of 
law and power. And, to enable oppressed 
individuals to oppose and punish abuses of 
authority and oppressions under the name and 
forms of law, it is incumbent on others to 
assist, by association and subscription, not 
merely with reference to the particular case, 
but as a warning to oppressors in general. 
At the same time, it should never be forgot- 
ten, that bad precedents are generally created 
in regard to persons or things otherwise ob- 
noxious, or made obnoxious; and maintained 
by sophistical attempts to combine the insi- 
nuated support of the obnoxious cause, with 
resistance to the precedent. Men, therefore, 

arising from agreeable or disagreeable associations of sense, 
from reciprocity of professed affection, or from the re- action 
produced by a comparison of different candidates ; and the 
combinations become almost infinite in number, when to these 
are superadded all the modifications created by the varied 
ranks, fortunes, education, and manners, of society. The 
difficulty, therefore, to both sexes, of securing an associate for 
life, who shall unite personal qualities preferred by the ima- 
gination, and sterling qualities of head and heart, with suitable 
manners and rank, renders marriage a perfect Lottery, in 
which both the parties are either as blind in some particulars, 
or as incapable of making an actual free choice, as the blind 
goddess of fortune herself. In fact, the diversity and in- 
volvement of the excitements seem intended lo baffle freedom 
of choice for the purpose of rendering marriage, or sexual 
union, universal, in spite of positive imperfections. 



HONEST MEN. 67 

should be clear-headed enough to discrimi- 
nate between the two questions ; and decided 
and honest enough to resist any vigour beyond 
the bounds of public law, whatever may be 
the question at issue ; or they will be likely to 
see the same precedent oppressively applied to 
all kinds of cases. 

XLVI. 

It ought never to be overlooked by a con- 
scientious, moral, and religious, people, that 
wars, to be just, ought to be necessary ; and, to 
be necessary, can be waged only in self-de- 
fence. And again, that, as without justice 
there can be no glory, so no glory can be 
acquired by victors in wars which are waged 
unj ustly, unnecessarily; or offensively. Before 
glory is therefore ascribed to combatants, it is 
needful to examine seriously the previous 
questions, whether their cause was just, and 
whether the war in which they were engaged 
might not have been avoided. 

XLVII. 

We often wonder at seeing a good sort of 
man enjoying himself by his fire-side, amidst 
the assiduities of a wife, who watches every 



68 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

turn of his countenance, and the endearments 
of his children, to whom he has the tenderest 
attachment, and yet know that he is in the 
daily practice of inflicting misery. Perhaps 
he is some sharp attorney, who inflames dis- 
putes, and exasperates the wealthy against the 
indigent; perhaps a judge, who urges the 
severity of the law, and always pleads for con- 
victions ; perhaps a magistrate, who sends 
men and women to gaol in sport ; perhaps a 
butcher, who whistles a tune while he cuts 
throats ; perhaps a sportsman, who kills for 
diversion, and often leaves his maimed victims 
to struggle for days under wounds inflicted by 
his wantonness ; perhaps an anonymous critic, 
who considers his venom as seasoning, and 
his censures as useful passports to attention ; 
or perhaps a minister, who makes war to 
please his master, or increase his patronage ? 
Such men are the mere creatures of habit, 
usage, and precedent. Probably they never 
duly and truly thought of their habitual prac- 
tices, and never were at such a focal distance 
from them as to be enabled to see them 
and their conduct distinctly. 

XLVIII. 

Happiness is the result of a healthy and 



HONEST MEN. 69 

well-working system of organization, combined 
with accordant actions and re-actions from 
nature and society, to the perceptions and 
reminiscences of the brain. Happiness, in a 
word, is the harmony of the body and mind 
with nature and society. The definition leads 
to its means. Healthy action can result only 
from temperance in eating and drinking, regu- 
larity of habits, cleanliness of person, exercise 
to promote the circulations, and excitements 
to exercise. Accordance with nature will re- 
sult of course, and may be improved by its 
study ; while accordance with society will 
arise from being just, sympathizing, benevo- 
lent, unostentatious, and useful. Self-satis- 
faction will result from such a state of personal 
and external harmony, and all the perceptions 
of happiness be enjoyed, of which humanity is 
susceptible. 

XLTX. 

Misery is the result of an unhealthy and ill 
working system of organization, or of discord- 
ant actions and reactions between nature and 
society, and the individual. It is the body 
and mind in a state of discord with nature and 
society. When nature is not in fault, the 



70 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

bodily discordances are occasioned by intem- 
perance, irregularity, excesses beyond the 
powers of nature, ignorance of the animal 
economy, personal filthiness, and slothful 
habits. Those of the mind correspond and 
display themselves in malignant temper, in 
inordinate selfishness, in want of time to 
exert the charities of life towards others ; and 
the consequences are, self- reprobation, dis- 
contentedness, hating and being hated, and 
an utter want of accordance with society at 
large. 

L. 

It is difficult to be happy, and to say to 
yourself that you are so, because all the virtues 
and exalted wisdom are necessary to the frui- 
tion of happiness, and a single vice or error j 
alloys the whole. False estimates, and incon- 
gruous expectations, mar the happiness of 
many on whom nature and society have con- | 
ferred their apparent means of full enjoyment. 
Acute feelings, and warmth of temper, de- 
prive others of that urbanity of manners, and 
equanimity of temper, which reconcile man to 
man. The active assaults of knavery create a 



HONEST MEN. 71 

general mistrust of all, and an anti-social 
reserve. The mischievous error of the world, 
in assigning virtue to success, and crime to 
misfortune, improperly substitutes a heart- 
rending solicitude about the world's opinion, 
in place of the satisfaction of intending well, 
and having done your best, and with integrity. 
The envy of the unworthy, who think you 
more happy than they know themselves to be, 
begets their slanders, back-bitings, and malig- 
nant whispers ; while, to surmount these, calls 
for patience and vigour of understanding not 
possessed by all. In a word, we are not per- 
fect either in body or mind; and can, there- 
fore, approximate to happiness only in the 
degree in which we are so. 

LI. 

Wretched is the man who has no employ- 
ment but to watch his own digestions; and 
who, on waking in the morning, has no useful 
occupation of the day presented to his mind. 
To such a one respiration is a toil, and exist- 
ence a continued disease. Self-oblivion is his 
only resource, indulgence in alcohol in various 
disguises his remedy, and death or supersti- 
tion his only comfort and hope> For what 



72 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

was he born, and why does he live, are ques- 
tions which he constantly asks himself; and 
his greatest enigmas are the smiling faces of 
habitual industry, stimulated by the wants of 
the day, or fears for the future. If he is 
excited to exertion, it is commonly to indulge 
some vicious propensity, or display his scorn 
of those pursuits which render others happier 
than himself. If he seek to relieve his inanity 
in books, his literature ascends no higher than 
the Romances, the newspapers, or the scan- 
dal, of the day ; and all the nobler pursuits 
of mind, as well as body, are utterly lost in regard 
to him. His passage through life is like that of 
a bird through the air, and his final cause 
appears merely to be that of sustaining the 
worms in his costly tomb. 

LII. 

The fundamental rules by which to enjoy 
as much as human nature is capable of enjoy- 
ing, are to estimate truly your position in the 
natural world ; to sympathise with your fellow- 
men in the same society, and with human na- 
ture in all societies; to be content in any 
station which supplies your natural wants; to 
divest your mind of the phantoms of great 
wealth, of fame, distinction, and show, for their 



HONEST MEN. 73 

own sake ; and, above all, to be moderate, and 
consistent in your expectations. 

LIII. 

The duties of legislation indicate the duties 
of individual creditors. The first questions 
in regard to an embarrassed man ought to be, 
— Is he solvent? is he honest? is he prudent? 
And, if these questions admit of an affirmative 
answer, it is the duty of his friends, neigh- 
bours, and creditors, to concert effectual means 
for his relief; and all men ought to beware of 
implacable creditors, who aggravate, instead of 
assisting, the temporary embarrassments of sol- 
vent, honest, and prudent, debtors. Such cre- 
ditors ought to be considered as wolves in a 
sheep-fold, and, abandoned by all honest men, 
to deal only with those of their own kind. 

LIV. 

Anger, or excessive emotion of mind, on 
suffering a real or supposed injury, arises 
from nervous sensibility, often increased by 
morbid secretions ; but, from its mischievous 
; effects on happiness and fortune, requires con- 
trol and suppression. As every action in one 
body produces re-action in another, so anger 
begets anger, and often rancorous hostility, 
stimulated by false pride, or allowed to display 
itself by indifferent friends. Yet, as undue 

vol. i. e 



74 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

excitement produces exhaustion, so the angry 
man soon relaxes, repents, and forgives, and 
his lasting resentment is less to be feared than 
that of one whose nerves are incapable of 
undue excitement. Anger appertains to men 
in proportion to their quickness of apprehension, 
but the same quickness ought to be anxiously 
exerted for its control. The wisest man is he 
who is so constituted as to be susceptible of great 
emotions, and who yet so controls his animal 
feelings, as to prevent their being discovered. 

LV. 

It is the duty of parents to educate their 
children according to their station, and to 
instruct them in their youth in the means of 
living with credit. If by folly or obstinacy 
they do not, or will not, succeed, duty toother 
children, and to approaching old age, must be 
considered, and every thing should not be 
sacrificed to one. Natural affection must, in 
this respect, yield to prudence, and children 
be forced to rely on their own exertions ; but, 
if industrious and yet unfortunate, relief 
ought, in that case, to proceed from the family 
stock, and the unmerited misfortune of one 
be considered as that of the whole. 

The decline of life, and the retrospections of 



HONEST MEN. 75 

old age, furnish unequivocal tests of worthiness 
and un worthiness. Happy is the man, who, 
after a well-spent life, can contemplate the 
rapid approach of his last year with the con- 
sciousness that, if he were born again, he 
could not, under all the circumstances of his 
worldly position, has^e done better, and who has 
inflicted no injuries for which it is too late to 
atone. Wretched, on the contrary, is he, who 
is obliged to look back on a youth of idleness 
and profligacy, on a manhood of selfishness 
and sensuality, and on a career of hypocrisy, 
of insensibility, of concealed crime, and of 
injustice above the reach of law. Visit both 
during the decay of their systems, observe 
their feelings and tempers, view the followers 
at their funerals, count the tears on their 
graves ; and, after such a comparison, in good 
time make your own choice. 

LV1I. 

Constant change is the feature of society. 
The world is like a magic lanthorn, or the 
shifting scenes in a pantomime. Ten years 
convert the population of schools into men 
and women, the young into fathers and 
matrons, make and mar fortunes, and bury 
the last generation but one. Twenty years 
convert infants into lovers, and fathers and 



76 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

mothers, render youth the operative genera- 
tion, decide men's fortunes and distinctions, 
convert active men into crawling drivellers, 
and bury all the preceding generation. 
Thirty years raise an active generation 
from nonentity, change fascinating beauties 
into merely bearable old women, convert 
lovers into grandfathers and grandmothers, 
and bury the active generation, or reduce 
them to decrepitude and imbecility. Forty 
years, alas ! change the face of all society ; 
infants are growing old, the bloom of youth 
and beauty has passed away, two active gene- 
rations have been swept from the stage of life, 
names so cherished are forgotten, and unsus- 
pected candidates for fame have started from 
the exhaustless womb of nature. Fifty 
years ! why should any desire to retain their 
affections from maturity for fifty years 1 It is 
to behold a world which they do not know, and 
to which they are unknown ; it is to live to 
weep for the generations passed away, for 
lovers, for parents, for children, for friends, in 
the grave ; it is to see every thing turned 
upside down by the fickle hand of fortune, and 
the absolute despotism of time ; it is, in a 
word, to behold the vanity of human life in all 
its varieties of display ! 






HONEST MEN. 69* 

LVIJI. 

Revenge is a troublesome as well as a 
dangerous and insatiable passion. For- 
giveness of injuries is far more easy, as 
well as more prudent, and satisfactory. At- 
tempts at revenge often recoil, and add to 
the original injury ; while they at least em- 
ploy much valuable time. If we forbear for 
a season, our resentment relapses into indiffe- 
rence ; while time and other employments 
either lead to an oblivion of the wrong, or 
render its recollection of no importance. 

LIX. 

Remember that wealth is a vulgar acquire- 
ment, often of chance, sometimes of knavery, 
and in other cases, of servile, low, and thrifty 
habits, and, therefore, in neither case a pro- 
per subject for pride ; — that rank or title, 
acquired by birth, is an accident which may 
appertain to the most wretched specimens of 
human nature, and, therefore, is no proper 
subject for pride; — and that eminence in 
virtue, wisdom, honour, and probity, will 
never cherish a feeling incompatible with 
those qualities; consequently, that pride can be 
cherished and practised only by those who 
have no just pretensions to superiority. 



70* SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

LX. 

Genuine friendship, in its best sense, is as 
rare in society as unadulterated truth in books. 
There are thousands of men with generous 
souls, but there are tens of thousands of 
knaves and ingrates to take advantage of 
them, while honour and falsehood use the 
same language. True friendship demands a 
perfection of character in two persons, which 
seldom meets. If one party expects servility 
and flattery, compliance implies other bad 
qualities; if indemnity from loss is expected, 
disappointments may follow; or, if calcula- 
tions of convenience or inconvenience are 
made, the compact ceases in its true sense. 
Hollow, convenient, and reciprocal friend- 
ships begin and end with every month : but 
a friend in adversity and prosperity, with 
joint-stock fortunes, and a fraternity of hopes, 
fears, and feelings, is a rare though enviable 
example of human felicity. 

LXI. 

A generous man, who is also a man of 
sense and discrimination, will be as forward 
in the praise of genius and excellence with 
his pen as in relieving them when necessary 
with his spare means. What is every body's 



HONEST MEN. 71* 

business is no body's; and many a man of 
talent has languished in uncertainty in regard 
to the world's estimation of his merit, because 
what was the duty of all, none had sufficient 
energy of virtue to perform. Envy and 
malice are boisterous enough, while praise is 
slow, and men are fearful of being thought 
obtrusive and officious when their feelings 
prompt an act of liberality. Nor is power 
or wealth requisite ; but simple integrity of 
soul, with learning enough to express it. In 
this sense the poorest men may become effi- 
cient patrons. Charles Fox valued, above 
all the letters he received while in office, the 
honest encomiums contained in a letter from a 
poor weaver at Glasgow, expressed with the 
unsophisticated eloquence of the heart. 

LXII. 

Of all social vices, that of backbiting and 
scandalizing, or bearing false witness against 
your neighbour, is the most odious and mis- 
chievous. Many elderly women and gossip- 
ing men are, in this respect, pestilences and 
public nuisances. They ought, by common 
consent, for the first convicted offence, to be 
banished from company ; for the second, to 
be posted in public places, and heavily fined 



T2* SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

for the compensation of the parties ; for the 
third, to stand in a white sheet during divine 
service; for the fourth, to be set in the pillory 
and pelted with rotten eggs ; and for the 
fifth, to be banished as felons, with distribu- 
tion of their property among all whom they 
have previously traduced. The crime of 
theft involves Jess moral turpitude than that 
of bearing false witness against your neigh- 
bour ; yet by the negligence of the legislature 
there are no penal statutes to enforce this 
commandment. To judge of its enormity, 
we have only to reside in a country town, 
where it will soon be found that a dozen tale- 
bearers keep the population in a constant fer- 
ment ; while those who listen, and do not 
inform against them, are as culpable as though 
they saw a thief picking a pocket, or a mid- 
night burglary, and gave no warning. Asso- 
ciations for the protection of character against 
malignant gossiping, ought to be formed as 
well as associations for the protection of pro- 
perty against larcenies. 

LXIII. 

No maxim is more important than that we 
should never defer till to-morrow that which 
we ought to perform to-day. Rapidity of 



HONEST MEN. 73* 

decision, promptness in performance, skill 
in execution, and perseverance to completion, 
constitute the perfection of active life, and 
are each of them essential to success. They 
are demanded in every station from the king 
upon the throne down to the lowest employ- 
ments, and are the cardinal virtues of all 
business. Thus decision is abortive without 
promptness, this inefficient without skill, and 
both useless without perseverance to the full 
accomplishment of the end. There are few 
men in the decline of life who, in their inter- 
course with society, do not recollect hundreds 
of plans rendered abortive for want of prompt- 
ness in execution, or which, if begun, after- 
wards failed for want of perseverance to finish. 
Though so many literary works appear, yet 
they are not a thousandth part of those which 
are begun but never finished ; while nine- 
tenths of those which appear either display 
want of skill, or of sufficient perseverance to 
attain perfection. 

LXIV. 

Indulge the luxury of sympathising with 
misfortune. The slightest attention in a 
season of calamity produces the deepest sense 
of gratitude of which men are susceptible. 
Acts of hospitality, convenient loans, exer- 



74* SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

tions of influence, unsolicited offers of practi- 
cable service, even words of condolence, 
when better succour cannot be given, are 
gratifying to both parties. And, as at such 
times, a man cannot have too many friends, 
and too many old ones drop off, volunteers 
need not restrain their liberal feelings by any 
sense of delicacy, or fear of being thought 
officious. The error will, at any rate, be on 
the right side, and honour him who offers, 
whether his service be useful or not. 

LXV. 

Nature suggests to children the duty of 
succouring their aged parents, and of consult- 
ing their happiness and comfort by every 
means in their power. One means is, to 
take care to prosper in life, and to deserve the 
good name of the world : another, to be kind, 
attentive, tractable, and dutiful : and a third, 
to assist their wants, and leave them nothing 
to repine from the ingratitude of those for 
whom they passed their best days in labour and 
anxiety, and from whom neglect would be felt 
with bitterness of anguish proportioned to 
the force of their natural claims and affec- 
tion. All the torments of the theological hell 
will be felt by children who unhappily are 
aware that they neglected their parents, or 



HONEST MEN, 75* 

contributed by any means to bring their grey 
hairs with sorrow to the grave. 

LXVI. 

Though education and national manners 
form men, and so much so, that children of 
the same parents, educated in the four 
quarters of the world, would scarcely seem of 
the same species, or even in different grades 
in the same country, would appear to be of 
different families ; yet similar education and 
habits will not produce similarity of powers 
and character. These are governed by the 
structure of the brain, and by different ener- 
gies arising from quantity or quality, which 
develope phenomena of their own kind. 
Hence the convenient aptitude of men for dif- 
ferent pursuits, and the subdivision of society 
into classes of various fitness and suitable 
employment. 

LXVII. 

A consequence results from the previous 
principle worthy of special attention. No in- 
convenience results in families where there is 
a power of choosing employments, but much, 
where circumstances do not admit of choice, 
and such is the general condition of poverty : 
for the same varieties exist among the chil- 
dren of poor parents as among rich ones. 



76* SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

Perhaps the ancients effected, in the four tem- 
peraments, and their admixture, quite as much 
accuracy as the modern phrenologists; and 
adopting their classification, it would seem, 
that though, in a poor family, the earthy and 
the phlegmatic may with content follow their 
father's calling, yet the spirits of the fiery and 
the aerial disqualify them; and these consti- 
tute, therefore, the floating adventurers of 
society, and too often the violators of the laws 
from a discordance between their social posi- 
tion and their natural feelings. 

LXV1II. 

Endeavour to deserve the approbation of 
the world, whether you obtain it or not. If 
you obtain it, use it modestly, or it will soon 
be lost ; and if you fail, or feel the shafts 
of envy flying at you, persevere in well-doing, 
as the only means of ultimate success. There 
will be infinitely more satisfaction in proving 
your enemies to be malignant liars, than in 
confirming their slanders by weakness of des- 
pair. If they mar your prospects, and inter- 
fere with your connexions, play a backward 
game, but persevere — redouble your industry 
— puj^ nothing to hazard — and, like the tor- 
toise in the fable, you will disconcert all your 
enemies by a tranquil victory. 



GOLDEN RULES FOR MEMBERS OF THE 
BRITISH LEGISLATURE. 



i. 



The duties of a legislator demand wisdom, 
experience, knowledge of human nature, 
knowledge of the habits and wants of the 
people, and knowledge of the pre-existing 
laws in their relative connexions and practical 
operations. The effectual performance of the 
duties implies habits of investigation and 
business; courage and independence to bring 
forward new laws, or improvements of old 
ones ; and intelligence and eloquence to main- 
tain their propriety and necessity, or to sup- 
port any opinions relative to subjects of iis- 
cussion in the House, or its committees. 



78 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

II. 

The Houses of Parliament are arenas on 
which talent and ambition combat for distinc- 
tion, power, and rank ; consequently, all the 
passions of human nature are displayed in 
them. Presumption is repressed, — loquacity 
is not listened to, — talents excite detraction, — 
activity arouses jealousy, — premature success 
envy, — low birth the contempt of the aris- 
tocracy, — common -sense talents undisciplined 
by regular education, the sneers of the learned 
professions and the graduates of Universities, 
— The old will not be led by the young,— and 
truth itself, on all subjects, belongs only to a 
party on one subject. In short, to attain the 
object of ascendancy, — patience, forbearance, 
perseverance, courage, self-denial, concession, 
and government of temper, must be combined 
with talents natural and acquired, and with 
an all-conquering industry both in attendance 
and study. One only in two or three hundred 
are so moulded as to succeed. 

in. 

In the commonwealth, the powers of the exe- 
cutive, the aristocracy, and the people, should 
be independent and in equipoise ; the church, 



LEGISLATORS. T9 

and the law, should serve, and not govern; 
agriculture should be promoted as the staple, 
manufactures as the convenience, commerce 
as the source of wealth and luxury, and the 
liberty of the press as the fountain of know- 
ledge and truth ; while, in all, labour should 
find its due reward, disease sympathetic sup- 
port, and old age, as the representative of that 
past generation from which the advantages of 
contemporary generations are derived, should 
be honourably and comfortably sustained. To 
balance these several portions of society, con- 
stitutes the moral, social, and political, duties 
of every able legislator. 

iv. 

Although members of parliament are upon 
an equality with reference to the public, and 
to the power of their individual votes, yet par- 
liament itself is a community in which the 
influence of a member is governed by the 
same considerations and prejudices as decide 
the influence of a man in general society. 
Good manners, winning address, sincerity of 
character, severity of application, and reputa- 
tion for wisdom and discretion, are, therefore, 
essential to the success of every member 



80 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

within the walls of parliament. Nor is the 
Lower House exempt from vulgar prejudices 
in favour of high birth : and Who was, and 
who is, the man ? as well as, What is the man in 
talent and character? are questions which 
accelerate or thwart the ambition of a new 
member, till his standard is admitted, his 
level settled, and he becomes amalgamated with 
some party, and integrated with the House* 



No member of parliament ought ever to feel 
discouraged from attempts to do good by 
apparent difficulties of success. If he scatter 
good seed, it will in due time produce 
good fruit. Nothing that passes in parliament 
is buried under a bushel. The agitation of a 
sound question, however abortive at the time, 
sinks deeply into men's minds, and, by de- 
grees, they become converts. Arguments do 
not at once produce equal conviction ; and cir- 
cumstances must combine, with reiterated 
attention, to atchieve a victory over self-love 
and pre-conceived opinions. Wilberforce 
laboured twenty years before he procured an 
Act to abolish the atrocious Slave Trade* 



LEGISLATORS. 81 

VI. 

Speakers in the legislature are not wanted 
so much as honest men who are qualified by 
energy of character and habits of enquiry, to 
think for themselves. Not more than one in 
twenty, in each assembly, should aspire to the 
reputation of being an orator. The more 
salutary qualifications are — thinking soundly 
and independently, and voting honestly, and 
according to intellectual conviction and logical 
demonstration. Eloquent leaders of debates on 
both sides may, to a certain degree, illustrate a 
subject; but every man of character will, by 
personal study and sedulous enquiry, become 
qualified to think for himself, and to decide inde- 
pendently on his own views and examinations. 
To follow leaders like horses in a team, is to 
be ignominious in conduct, and contemptible 
in character. 

VII. 

Parliamentary friendships are heartless and 
hollow. Every man is either seeking to serve 
the interest of himself or his friends, or seeking 
to magnify himself in the eyes of his constitu- 
ents and the public. If he is courteous to 
another man, it is with a view to promote his 

e 2 



82 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

own interest. Every member, therefore, 
should stand on his own legs as a man by him- 
self, and act for himself as an independent 
noun-substantive. 

VIII. 

Blackstone, Montesquieu, Puffendorf, Gro- 
tius, and Vattel 5 ought to be read by every 
man who aspires to a vote in the legislature ; 
and he who has not read some of these 
authors, ought, if he is a man of sense and 
honour, to refrain from giving any opinion on 
new laws. 

IX. 

The authorities on subjects of finance, are, 
Adam Smith, Denham Stewart, the speeches 
of Pitt and Fox, and the writings of Lord 
Sheffield, Sir John Sinclair, David Ricardo, 
and Messrs. Marshall and Malthus ; and no 
honest man, who has not studied some of these 
authorities, ought to venture to speak in regard 
to fiscal assessments, and financial regulations. 

x. 

The authorities on constitutional questions 
are, Locke, Bolingbroke, Blackstone, Delolme, 

6 



LEGISLATORS. S3 

Miller, Junius, Cartwright, the speeches of 
Skippen, Chatham, Camden, Fox, Erskine, 
Burke, and Sheridan ; and no man, who has 
not rendered himself familiar with several of 
these authorities, can conscientiously presume 
to vote on such questions. 

XI. 

The study of Modern History, as it is best 
found in the Annual Registers ; of Geography, 
as it is detailed in travels into various coun- 
tries, and by actual travels through Europe as 
a feature of education ; and of Biography, in 
authentic memoirs of distinguished men ; are 
the best criteria on which conscientious mem- 
bers of parliament can vote on subjects of 
foreign policy. 

XII. 

■ The Indexes to the Statutes, and the classi- 
fications of the laws by various authors, will 
always enable a member, within an hour, to 
discover the bearings, tendency, and propriety, 
of any proposed law, if it relate to objects to 
which legislation has already been directed : 
and, if the object is new, then a scrupulous 
member will show the Bill to different practi- 



84 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

cal men likely to be affected by it, and be 
directed by the sum of their information ; for, 
although such men are examined before com- 
mittees, yet no conscientious man will ever 
vote on any second-rate authority ; and it too 
often happens that the evidence before com- 
mittees consists of an interested cabal. 

XIII. 

The test of good legislation is the cheap- 
ness, facility, and certainty, of law and justice ; 
and legislators disgrace their functions, who 
permit redress of wrongs to be expensive, who 
tolerate obstructions, and who do not perse- 
vere in adopted remedies till they have ren- 
dered legal decisions as certain as truth. The 
lawyers' toast, " The glorious uncertainty of 
the law," is a libel on the legislature for the 
time being, and an insolent taunt of the com- 
munity, which, by such uncertainty, is placed 
in a worse situation than in a savage state ; 
because the injustice of wealth, or strength, 
is aggravated by plausible forms, and assisted 
by the force of law, which is that of the com- 
munity concentrated in the executive. 

XIV. 

If a member desire to distinguish himself as 



LEGISLATORS. 85 

a useful legislator, independently of the law- 
yers, who are deeply interested in what they 
call the glorious uncertainty of the law, he 
will, from time to time, read the Term Re- 
ports ; and, in the statements and arguments 
of the judges, he will discover those points in 
which justice is obstructed, and the subject 
suffers wrong ; and be able to propose special 
statutes for the correction of defects in the 
administration of the law; in which he would 
be supported by all members who unite com- 
mon sense with honourable feeling, 

xv. 

Ignominious is the position of any legislature 
in which lawyers have a preponderating 
influence, for they will never permit any law to 
pass, which tends to emancipate the people 
from their toils; or which, in any degree, 
abridges their possible profits and ascendancy. 
Lawyers are the mere servants of jurispru- 
dence ; and every servant ought to have a mas- 
ter, or he becomes master himself, and worse 
than master, because he serves himself under 
the name of his master, without regard to a 
master's honourable responsibility. In an in- 
dependent legislature, lawyers should merely 



86 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

be employed as assistants, or advisers in 
cases of difficulty ; for every man of sense, who 
is forty years of age, is perfectly competent to 
adapt laws to the society in which he lives, and 
subtleties and complications are above all 
things to be avoided. That which every man 
cannot at once understand is not fit for law ; 
and any law, which every one cannot at once 
understand in its connexion with the subject, 
must be the act of a legislature of knaves or 
fools. 

xvi, 

The duration of empires depends much on 
its law-makers, but nature has its limits, and 
philosophical laws should endeavour to extend 
them. Men in a country are like mites in a 
cheese, or ants in their nest ; and, like them, 
they eat up and exhaust their own sustenance 
in the scite of their residence. A country is 
not simple food, like a cheese ; but the ele- 
ments of, and by which it forms, food, are not 
illimitable. They pass in a circle, but this cir- 
cuit is deranged by large cities, which concen- 
trate more of the elements of production than 
they return ; and thereby, in time, convert 
fertile districts into arid deserts. This has 



LEGISLATORS. 87 

been the fate of Asia, and of all ancient coun- 
tries; and, without due precautions, must be 
also the fate of every country containing cities, 
which consume larger portions of the elements 
of vegetation than they return to the soil in the 
form of manure. 

XVII. 

The decay of empires arises either from 
natural causes, as the exhaustion of the soil, 
the choking up of harbours and rivers by the 
accumulation or shifting of sand-banks, the 
diversion of commerce, into newly-discovered 
channels, or more commonly by the silent 
encroachments of one class of the people on 
another, by which that healthy balance of 
their pursuits is disturbed, on which depends 
the general prosperity. A legislature and 
government should be intelligent enough to 
understand this balance, independent enough 
to maintain it, and, if disturbed, powerful 
enough to restore it; but, if neither intel- 
ligent, independent, nor powerful, other nations 
will soon transcend their country, and its 
energetic members be transferred to them. 

XVIII. 

As members of the House of Commons are 



88 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

special guardians of the public purse, and 
assessors of taxes, it is in the first capacity 
their bounden duty, one and all, to watch over 
the public expenditure, to refuse support to 
corrupt jobs of ministers and their adherents, 
and to restrain prodigality in the disburse- 
ments for the various branches of public ser- 
vice : and, in the second capacity, they are 
called upon by every sense of duty to take 
care that the taxes are not unequal, partial, 
and oppressive ; that the boards for collecting 
them are not armed with such arbitrary 
powers as render the collection ruinous and 
tyrannical, without discretion to refer questions 
in dispute ; and that, above all things, the 
independence of juries in the Exchequer, 
before whom fiscal grievances and oppressions 
are, in the last resort, to be tried, should be 
indifferently and independently drawn from 
the whole body of the jurors of the district. 

XIX. 

A wise legislator will constantly be vigilant 
in regard to the changes required in laws by 
variations in the habits and pursuits of the peo- 
ple. These changes have been so great within 
two centuries, and so rapid within the me- 



LEGISLATORS. 89 

mory of man, that half the statutes previous to 
1800 might with advantage be repealed, and 
others beneficially substituted. In like manner, 
the progress of free enquiry has destroyed the 
erroneous principles on which many statutes are 
founded, and these ought to be expunged as im- 
proved principles are established ; while, as the 
body of the common laws were for the most part 
founded on the vulgar errors of the barbarous 
times when they were recognized, they call for 
extensive qualification by statutes, in accord- 
ance with the enlightened spirit and improved 
manners of the passing age, 

xx. 

Legislators in Britain should not merely 
guard the forms of trial by jury from abuse, 
but should not permit the property, interest, 
or liberties, of the people, to be subject to any 
other power. The summary authority con- 
ferred by modern statutes on single magis- 
trates, and on majorities of benches of magis- 
trates, and the powers tolerated in the Courts 
of Chancery, are parliamentary treasons 
against the rights and liberties of the English 
people ; and intolerable grievances, which, by 



90 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

design or inadvertency, are constantly aug- 
menting. Indeed, the general practice of 
Chancery law is become almost a public nui- 
sance, and an outrage on reason and justice. 

XXI. 

As it is an undeniable truism, that the en- 
lightened of this age are far wiser than the 
past generations ; and, as it is the necessary 
tendency of the printing press to render every 
generation wiser, so the plea of precedent and 
antiquity, often used to cover corrupt and 
sinister designs, ought to be treated by every 
member of parliament as an impeachment of 
his independence and understanding : for one 
age is as competent at least to decide on any 
question as any previous age ; and one inde- 
pendent and anxious legislature is as compe- 
tent to set a precedent, or establish a doctrine, 
as any other which may not only have been not 
so wise, but far less independent : and the col- 
lective wisdom of men, of different ages of life, 
is not liable to the same objection as to the 
individual wisdom of age and experience, con- 
trasted with youth and inexperience. The 
question, therefore, ought never to be, whether 



LEGISLATORS. 91 

a parliament did or did not perform a certain 
act in such a remote period ; but whether it is 
proper, expedient, and fitting, that the same 
act should be re-performed at the moment of 
debate, 

XXII. 

In fiscal arrangements, indirect ought to be 
preferred to direct, taxation ; and assessments 
made on real, rather than on personal, pro- 
perty. Nothing tends so much to oppress a 
people, and obstruct industry, as direct taxes, 
with all their dirty ensnaring penalties, and 
insulting and vexatious modes of collection. 
They place the community at war with the 
government, lead to non-consumption and 
evasion, and create uncertainty and annoyance 
in all branches of trade connected with them. 
Above all, a patriotic senator should beware, 
that the means of assessing and collecting any 
tax is not made, as is often the case, a covert 
means of abridging the civil liberties of the 
people. 

XXIII. 

Taxes on law-proceedings ought never to 
be tolerated, because they obstruct justice, 



92 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

put a price upon it, and affect the security of 
property ; and they also stimulate rich men to 
annoy poor ones, and thereby increase con- 
tention and the number of law-suits ; for it is 
found that, in the United States, where a 
cause can be carried to execution for as many 
shillings as for pounds in Britain, there are few 
law-suits in comparison. 

XXIV. 

To render legislation perfect, the laws 
should be watched in their operation ; and, for 
this purpose, the judges of all the courts at 
Westminster should be obliged to report on their 
defects to both Houses of Parliament, within 
the first ten days of every sessions, and 
benches of magistrates for every county should 
make such reports alternately every third year ; 
and, as a check on the prejudices of autho- 
rity, other reports should be made by seven of 
the twelve senior practising counsel of each of 
the courts at Westminster. These reports 
would be fundamental bases on which to 
legislate from sessions to sessions ; and, if 
necessary, parliament might superadd a 
remembrancer to each court at Westminster, 



LEGISLATORS. 93 

who might report, as its independent agent, 
on the operation and defects of the laws. 

xxv. 

In making penal enactments, as little as 
is possible should be left to the humour, pre- 
judices, and temporary motives, of judges, 
tribunals, and magistrates ; for, to confer on 
any man or men a wide range of discretion 
in affixing punishments, under all the feelings 
in which they may be called upon to decide, is 
to confer on them the powers of absolute des- 
pots, and to place the subjects of the realm 
under a worse tyranny than the subjects of 
Morocco, because the tyrants are more nu- 
merous. Every genus of crime should be 
classed into several species; which species 
the jury should determine, and the law should 
prescribe the maximum and minimum of 
punishment in each species. 

XXVI. 

Members of the legislature should never 
forget, that they are the guardians of the 
equal rights of the whole population, whether 
it subsist on land, or in the equally useful 
employments of the sea. They are bound, 



94 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

therefore, not to sanction any usage of semi- 
barbarous ages, by which ministers, rather 
than apply to parliament for sufficient money 
to procure men by suitable bounties and pay, 
prefer seizing them by bludgeon law, and 
sacrificing one class without proper indemnity 
from the rest of the community : and, as legis- 
lative means of correcting the evil, they should 
take care that the annual mutiny-bills contain 
no clauses but such as regulate service pre- 
sumed to be free, and under mutual contract, 
The onus of inventing just and efficient means 
of manning the navy lies not less on the mem- 
bers of the legislature than on the executive 
government. 

XXVII. 

The successful industry and commerce of a 
country depend on the wise and judicious ba- 
lance of two opposing interests, that of debtors 
and creditors. If a lax state of the laws 
enables debtors to cheat creditors with impu- 
nity, credit, the basis of trade, commerce, and 
mutual intercourse, will be impaired ; while, if 
the law leave unfortunate debtors to the mercy 
of disappointed and enraged creditors, every 
variety of severity and cruelty will be practised 



LEGISLATORS. 95 

in its name. A previous question should 
always be first determined in regard to the 
true character of an insolvent, and legislation 
should then discriminate suitable treatment, 
which should be marked by liberality towards 
industry in misfortune, and by severe inquisi- 
tion towards profligacy at the end of its 
career. 

XXVIII. 

A high majority of creditors ought always 
to be empowered to arrange with debtors, and 
their decision should govern the adverse feel- 
ings of a small or impracticable minority. 
This simple principle would serve as the basis 
of a code in regard to debtors and creditors ; 
but there is danger lest fraudulent claims 
should constitute the majority, and hence a 
necessity for laws of great severity against 
such frauds : for the whole community ought 
not to suffer under a coercive system because 
a few might abuse a liberal system ; and there- 
fore, to secure the advantages of a liberal sys- 
tem, severe punishments ought to be inflicted 
on those who thwart the public interest on 
points of such vital importance. At present 
embarrassment becomes ultimate insolvency, 



96 



SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 



because the law permits no middle course, 
and to be embarrassed and to be insolvent in- 
volves equal ruin by the operations of law. 

XXIX. 

Legislators should never forget that they 
are making laws for beings as wise and cun- 
ning as themselves ; and, therefore, that laws 
which violate the common sense of mankind, 
which lead to practical injustice, or which are 
irksome, inquisitorial, or oppressive in their 
operation, will be rendered nugatory by the 
resentment of society, soon become obsolete, 
and stand in the Statute Books merely as 
records of the folly or turpitude of those who 
invented and enacted them. 

xxx. 

In passing laws, members ought to feel 
with due force the importance of every word 
and principle to extensive interests, and to 
the happiness of individuals. No member 
should vote on a Bill which he has not taken 
the pains to read with care, and every public- 
spirited member will anxiously read every 
Bill, that he may either oppose, correct, or 
support it. It is ignominious to vote under 



LEGISLATORS. 97 

the authority or example of another ; and basely 
corrupt, and a gross compromise of public 
duty, to vote for one measure with a view to 
obtain support on another. 

XXXI. 

As we have in England four hundred and 
twenty hereditary legislators, and six hundred 
and fifty elective ones, and few are qualified to 
propound, justify, and establish new laws, 
the country does not require, as a test of ability, 
that every member of the legislature should 
propound one new law, or modification of an 
old law, every session, or we might have a 
thousand changes every year in our judicial 
code. If only one in ten of the Commons, and one 
in fifty of the Lords, are competent to originate 
measures of legislation, there remain 585 voters 
in onehouse, and 410 non-legislators in the other, 
of various degrees ofjudgment and information ; 
and these serve to neutralize, attemper, qua- 
lify, and modify, those propositions which pas- 
sion, prej udice, vanity, or interest, might, with- 
out such alloy, pass into laws. Every member 
of the British legislature is therefore suffi- 
ciently useful in constituting an ingredient in 
the neutral compound of dispassionate wisdom, 
without being an originator of laws. 
VOL i. f 



98 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

XXXII, 

The fundamental questions which, under the 
house of Guelph, divide the legislature, relate 
to popular rights and the prerogatives of the 
crown, and to reforms, and ministerial influence. 
In a mixed government, these questions must 
always exist, and the principles apply them- 
selves to such an infinite variety of decisions, 
as to create two permanent parties. To one 
or other, every member must necessarily belong, 
and to be neutral or vacillating is to be ridicu- 
lous and useless. Differences on general 
principles beget parties ; while agreements 
beget personal union and party confederacies. 

XXXIII. 

Men who honestly think that the influence 
of the crown has increased, is increasing, and 
ought to be diminished, and who believe that 
civil liberty is the greatest social blessing, will 
vote on all questions which involve popular 
rights and privileges with the popular party ; 
but those who think that a system which 
works and has worked well, is sufficient ; and 
who confide in the house of Guelph, and its 
ministers, will of course ally themselves to the 
court party. The presumption of integrity 



LEGISLATORS. 99 

will attach to disinterestedness ; and of corrup- 
tion, to recompence, in the attainment of 
place and emolument. 

xxxiv. 

As members of parliament are, for conveni- 
ence of assemblage, mere representatives and 
attorneys of their constituents, so every well- 
disposed member will not omit, from time to 
time, to confer with the leading men among 
his constituents, and endeavour to render their 
opinions on public questions accordant; but, 
if, from any cause, they are irreconcilable, it 
will be more honourable at once to resign his 
trust, than to permit himself to be ejected from 
his seat with loss and contempt at the next 
election ; while such proof of his sincerity will 
promote his true interests far more than an 
overbearing and unprincipled contempt of 
those who, for a time, confided to him the 
guardianship of their interests, and their per- 
sonal representation in parliament. 

XXXV. 

The constitution has marked the legislative 
sin of accepting any place of emolument, by 
requiring the abandonment of seat ; and, of 

l 



100 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

course, no member who values his character 
as his fortune will ever barter his vote for any 
such personal advantage, either in possession 
or promise : at the same time, place may often be 
reconciled with principle and integrity ; but, 
as it pledges votes, and binds the receiver to a 
political party as long as it is held, the reputa- 
tion of independence is necessarily lost. 
*♦ 

XXXVI. 

The most difficult task of members for coun- 
ties, and bodies of real electors, is to satisfy 
the rapacious cravings of their unreasonable 
constituents. They are required to provide 
for them in difficulties, and to promote their 
sons, generations, and kin ; and, to effect this, 
to ask favours of ministers and men in office: 
while, if their inflexible independence renders 
this impracticable, they are, as an alternative, 
called upon to contribute to every charitable 
subscription, and to entertain, feed, and sup- 
port, a tribe of leeches and mean-spirited 
electors. Thus, an independent seat, as it is 
called, costs an independent member from 1000 
to 1500/. per annum, unless he barter his 
votes, and transfer them, and their claims, to 
the Treasury Bench. The only cure for the 



LEGISLATORS. 101 

evil would be, to refer every case of such ap- 
plication to the body of the electors, and advise 
them to take care of their own poor. 

XXXVII. 

The most flagrant mal -practices of both 
houses of parliament, are the general misma- 
nagement of bills in committees, and the 
loose and irresponsible conduct of members of 
committees. The system is too frequently a 
caricature of sober legislation. Indifference in 
general attendance, partial attendance of inte- 
rested persons, arbitrary treatment of witnesses, 
cabals in bringing them up, bartering of votes 
among members of different committees^ with 
other vices which belong per se to such 
committees; all which abuses ought to be cor- 
rected by effectual regulations, as reform not 
less essential than that in the representation 
itself. 

XXXVIII. 

The intermediate remedy is the strict and 
conscientious attendance of members ap- 
pointed on committees, and a zealous and en- 
lightened discharge of their duties in them : 
but a general order ought to affix heavy penal- 
ties for every non-attendance, and expulsion 



102 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

from parliament for total neglect ; while com- 
mittees ought universally to be determined by 
lot, (not by ballot or nomination,) from the 
whole efficient body of the House ; and remu- 
neration should be made for attendance. 

XXXIX. 

The Decalogue of Moses is a sound stand- 
ard of legislation ; but, by a strange oversight, 
legislation is chiefly confined to that clause 
which prohibits stealing property. That which 
regards the Sabbath-day is strangely perverted, 
the true Sabbath neglected, and a festival of 
the Catholic church substituted ; so that 
human authority is opposed to the ancient 
law, and the wise object of a day of rest 
founded by the decalogue for Saturday, or the 
seventh day, is lost. Again, that article which 
forbids back-biting, scandal, and slander, is 
not only utterly neglected ; but, by the prac- 
tice of the English courts of law, slanderous 
words are scarcely ever punishable, and then 
only by fine. If to steal to the amount of a 
few shillings incurs transportation or death, 
surely the taking away of character ought at 
least to be punished with equal severity. No 
crime is more mischievous ; but, in general, it 



LEGISLATORS. 103 

is practised with such impunity, that a few 
old women, or gossiping men, render a resi- 
dence in a country town, or village, a sort of 
hell upon earth : while simple punishments of 
the stocks, pillory, public whipping, and hard 
labour, would effectually correct the mis- 
chief. As Jesus Christ declared that he 
came to fulfil the laws, not to break them, it 
might be expected that Christian legislatures 
would enforce, by statutes, the whole of the 
fundamental principles of the Decalogue. 

XL. 

An enlightened legislator will exert his 
influence to suppress all practices which have 
engrafted themselves on society in bad and 
barbarous times, such as duelling, public 
boxing, bull-baiting, Sec. Sec. while, on the 
other hand, he will adopt all necessary means 
to promote associations for the extension of 
every kind of useful knowledge ; and all popu- 
lar institutions that are calculated to promote 
the happiness and gaiety of the people, as 
dancing, theatres, fairs, public games, &c. as 
reliefs to their general cares, and as periodical 
relaxations from their regular toils ; and he will 
on no account permit their suppression owing 



304 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

to their occasional abuse, and to the trouble 
which their superintendence may impose on 
the police or the magistracy. 

XLI, 

It is the duty of legislators to beware that 
the various corporations, associations, and in- 
stitutions, of society, are truly and wisely caL 
dilated to promote their professed ends, and 
do not serve the few by sacrificing the many. 
They should also particularly examine into the 
managementof public institutions forlearning, 
and see that prejudice, bigotry, and pedantry, 
do not prevail over truth, improvement, and 
utility ; and that the knowledge of the rising 
generation, in public schools, keeps pace with 
that of the community, and the general pro- 
gress of reason and discovery. 

XLII. 

This enumeration of the essential qualifica- 
tions and onerous duties of a legislator, proves 
that no man ought to aspire to a seat in the 
House of Commons, merely because he pos- 
sesses the legal qualification of property, and has 
convivial talents, which render him popular at 
a tavern dinner. The true stimulus ought to 



LEGISLATORS. 105 

be, a desire to do his country some service, 
and a consciousness that he possesses natural 
powers and intellectual attainments which are 
adapted to the station; for, without these, a 
member not merely renders his incapacity con- 
spicuous, but his misplaced ambition is con- 
temptible and mischievous, because he pre- 
vents some more able man from filling the same 
seat ; and is, himself, merely a supple numera- 
tor of some faction within the House. 

XLIIL 

If a member of either House does not com- 
promise himself by hasty and frivolous speeches 
on questions incapable of proof, or on subjects 
beneath the dignity of parliament; if he is 
steady in his connexions and principles ; and, 
if he takes but moderate pains to inform his 
mind on general subjects, and especially on 
those before the legislature, no subject of the 
British empire can be more useful to his coun- 
try : for the press gives extensive currency to 
his opinions and conduct; while his position, 
if skilfully used, confers power and influence on 
his exertions. An honest man is truly the 
noblest work of God ; but an honest peer, or 
member of parliament, superadds to this 

f2 



106 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

glorious attribute, the higher virtue of resisting 
temptation in the various seductive forms in 
which it is presented to his vanity, interest, 
and ambition ; and, therefore, in acting well 
his part, he deserves all the honour which the 
gratitude of his constituents and his country 
can bestow. 

xliv. 
Whether a people are happy or miserable, 
whether a nation is in prosperity or in adver- 
sity, whether its internal policy is a subject of 
just admiration or condemnation, and whether 
its external policy accords with the eternal 
rules of general morality, depend much on the 
intelligence, vigilance, and eloquence, of the 
members of the legislature. They ought to 
possess an intimate personal knowledge of the 
country ; they ought to be actuated by senti- 
ments of benevolence and justice ; they ought 
to feel the importance of their personal posi- 
tion, and sustain it by their activity ; and they 
ought, at all times and in all things, to be sti- 
mulated by a passionate love of their country, 
without forgetting the interests of the human 
race. 



GOLDEN RULES OF CIVIL LIBERTY, 



Men in society surrender natural rights mu- 
tually ; hence the restraints of law ought to be 
equal and common to all.- 

ii. 

The design of all government is to promote 
the general and equal benefit and happiness of 
every member of the community. 

in. 

The preponderating influence of particular 
interests being incompatible with the equal 
benefit of other interests, all governments 
ought to flow from, and be influenced by, the 
ascertained will of the whole community. 



108 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

IV. 

Determinations in regard to what is just 
and true, in regard to individuals and the 
nation, are the problems which governments 
and legislators ought to be incessantly em- 
ployed in solving. 

v. 

As the only practical test of truth is unani- 
mity of opinion, arising from the same evi- 
dence, so all decisions should be unanimous, 
or be made by the nearest convenient approxi- 
mations towards unanimity.* 

VI. 

In the arrangements of every govern ment, 
the primary care should be to adopt all such 
practical means as should secure its measures 



* No maxim is practically more true, than that there 
is confusion in a multitude of counsellors. Eloquence 
misleads many, — sophistry others, — prejudice more, — 
the strongest side too many, — affection and hatred others; 
while, as an assemblage of men adds nothing to the 
individual wisdom of each, so their collected decision, 
however imposing, is not wiser than the separate decision 
of each. The only use of multitudes is the chance of 
averaging passions, and accumulating information ; but, 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 109 

from error, and enable it to ascertain the truth 
on every question of policy and practice. 

VII. 

Votes on public questions should be inde- 
pendent of the fears of the parties, or the 
machinations of undue influence, and therefore 
ought, in all cases, to be given by ballot. 

VIII. 

Every member of the community should 
have an influence on the government propor- 
tioned to his intelligence, and be called upon 
to perform no duties but such as accord with 
his intelligence and habits of life. 



IX. 

The selection of the members of the govern- 



if truth is really the object, it will be more certainly- 
attained by the decisions of five hundred broken into ten 
or twenty committees, than by a single decision of the 
whole body. Of course, if the majority decides, the 
chances of truth or error are only as the numbers on 
each side, even when no feelings, extraneous to the 
question, influence the votes ; and, as feelings are more 
numerous and operative than arguments, so majorities 
are no tests of truth ; and it too often happens that truth 
is on the side of the baffled minority. 



110 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

ment ought to flow from the universal will ; 
but that will or choice should be regulated by 
encreased intelligence, as the importance of 
office advances. 

x. 

That the suffrages of the people may be 
universal, but, at the same time, regulated by 
their intelligence, every ten men, of mature 
age and sound mind, within a small district, 
should elect annually, with re-eligibility for 
five years, one of their number as a local 
delegate, another as a militia-man, and a third 
as a constable. 

xi. 

Every hundred delegates should assemble in 
primary meetings within their locality, and 
electa magistrate, with re-eligibility for three 
years, three guardians of the poor, three arbi- 
trators of private disputes, and three repre- 
sentatives to a general provincial assembly. 

XII. 

Three hundred representatives of every 
hundred local assemblies should meet annu- 
ally, and elect three of its members to a 



CJViL LIBERTY. ill 

national legislature, a sheriff of the province, 
and also seven magistrates, with re-eligibility 
for three years, to preside at sessions on 
criminal trials, and hear appeals against 
decisions of local arbitrators,* 

XIII. 

The legislature should elect one member in 
every ten to a senate, with equal power in the 
enactment of laws and the assessment of taxes, 

XIV. 

The senate should elect one of every ten to 



* It would be desirable that, in the legislature, certain 
classes should be specially represented in addition to the 
general representation of the population, for the sake of 
obtaining their information, and guarding against their 
intrigues in the popular elections ; thus, one in every 
hundred representatives should be returned by the law- 
yers, the divines of all congregations, the medical pro- 
fessions, the universities or public schools, the printers, 
the owners of ships, the captains of ships, the com- 
manders of regiments, the servants of the government, 
and the foreigners who are housekeepers. The legisla- 
ture would thus amalgamate the interests and best 
intelligence of the entire community. 



112 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

form an executive council, with re-eligibility 
for three years. 

xv. 

The Executive Council would thus pass 
through five elections, ascending from the 
people; the Senate through four; the Lower 
House through three ; the Provincial Assem- 
blies through two; and the Primary Meetings 
through one ; each election being made by a 
higher degree of intelligence, and its inde- 
pendence secured by the mode of ballot. 

XVI. 

No practising lawyer, no beneficed or acting 
clergyman, no commissioned officer in the 
army or navy, and no permanent placeman, 
should be eligible to a seat in the provincial 
assemblies, or to the office of magistrate, 
arbitrator, or juryman. 

XVII. 

Juries should be summoned by the sheriff in 
rotation, in the order of their local residences, 
from among the ty thing-men, from at least 
three districts of the court's jurisdiction. 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 113 

XVIII. 

Grand and Special Juries should be taken 
in similar rotation and manner, from among 
the representatives of the county or provincial 
assemblies. 

XIX. 

No discretionary punishments should be 
assigned by the presiding magistrates in courts 
of criminal judicature ; but, when the punish- 
ment is undefined by the law, the jury should 
assign a maximum and minimum for the guide 
of the magistrates. 

XX. 

The use of the press, and the right of publi- 
cation, should be unrestrained ; but its abuse 
may be checked by a Grand Jury, convened 
for the purpose, and punished by the verdict of 
a jury composed half from primary assemblies 
and half from county assemblies. 

XXI. 

All debtors should be allowed to adjust and 
conclude their obligations with a majority of 
two in three, or three in four, of their bond fide 
creditors ; and persons fraudulently assuming 



114 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

to be creditors, should be compelled, for a 
limited time, to work on the highways, with 
iron collars round their necks. 

XXII. 

Every primary district should be provided 
with an asylum for the sick, and the aged, and 
incurably diseased poor. 

XXIII. 

Every man whose military or naval services 
are required by the public, should be a volun- 
teer from the militia, and be remunerated, at 
least, in the same degree that he would be in 
any private employment. 

XXIV. 

In the army, double the required number of 
corporals and Serjeants should be elected by 
the privates, subject to the selection of the 
superior officers ; the ensigns and lieutenants 
should be nominated for each company by the 
primary assemblies ; double the number of the 
captains should be elected from among the 
lieutenants, and the major by the captains; 
subject in such case to the selection of the 
lieut. -colonel and colonel, who should them- 



CIVIL LIBERTY. 115 

selves be selected by the executive council, 
from among double the number of superior 
officers elected by the captains, 

xxv. 

The greatest proprietor of land in every 
district should be obliged, on due application, 
to build convenient residences for all married 
men who give assurance of good conduct ; and 
allot to the same, on average terms of rental, 
at least as many acres of land as constitute an 
equal family share of all the land. 

XXVI. 

To enable small farmers to cultivate on 
equal advantages with large ones, every dis- 
trict should be provided with a public stable, 
and with a repository of machinery calculated 
to facilitate labour, for general use, at an 
expence to be equally borne. 

XXVII. 

All children from six to twelve should 
receive elementary instruction at public 
schools, free of expence ; registers of their 
conduct be kept, and public rewards adjudged 
at the meeting of the district assembly. 



116 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

XXVIII. 

Every primary district should be provided 
with a public library, consisting of books 
voted at the primary meetings ; also with an 
assembly room for winter balls, and with a 
walk and music, for summer promenades. 

XXIX. 

Every county town should be provided with 
a theatre, to be held by a qualified company, 
free of rent and taxes. 

XXX. 

A Committee of Constitution, consisting of~ 
one from each provincial or county assembly, 
should be appointed every three years, to exa- 
mine into the purity and perfectibility of the 
institutions, and draw up reports on the same, 
for the guidance of the legislature. 



GOLDEN RULES IN FAVOUR OF RELIGIOUS 
LIBERTY. 



I. 

No man can in justice be made criminally 
answerable for mere abstract opinions, which 
result from the honest convictions of his rea- 
son : for it is not only wicked and blas- 
phemous, but absurd and unjust, for any man 
to set up his own opinions as standards of 
theological faith for the implicit guide of any 
other man. 

it. 
As every man claims the right of following 
the sober dictates of his own judgment in 
matters of religion, so he should candidly and 



118 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

freely allow others, with equal latitude, to fol- 
low their own convictions. Religion, on its 
own hypothesis, is a concern between man 
and his God ; and all that men have to do 
with each other is, their mutual practice as 
fellow-citizens. 

in. 

Men, considered as body and mind, are 
social and spiritual; having, in their social 
relations, duties to perform to their neighbours 
and their country ; and, in their spiritual rela- 
tions, duties to God . These obligations spring 
from sources different as their objects. The 
one is the law of the state ; and its object is, 
the conservation of society. The other is the 
law of God ; and the object is, the government 
of a man's own conscience, and his happiness 
in a future state. 

IV. 

The source of the first is allegiance and sub- 
mission to the law; and the source of the other 
is religious feeling under God's grace. The 
one arises from temporal and reciprocal personal 
considerations ; and the other is the communion 
of every man's own soul with his Maker. 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 119 

They are two powers exercised on the same 
being, entirely independent of each other, 
applicable to distinct functions of the person, 
not discordant, yet wholly unconnected. 



The publication of opinions, on abstract, 
scientific, and speculative, subjects, is no 
criminal libel, breach of the peace, or social 
crime; but is a duty which every honest 
man is bound to perform ; that, if true, they 
may be adopted, and that, if false, they may- 
be refuted. 

VI. 

If it be said that certain doctrines are 
from God, and ought therefore not to be 
disputed, it is evident that doctrines, which 
emanate from an all-powerful Deity, can- 
not be shaken or overturned by man ; and 
therefore the publication of any adverse opi- 
nions of man must necessarily be harmless. 

VII. 

On any questions of religion, there can 
be no standard of truth but human reason, or 
the alleged operations of the spirit of God, and 



120 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

conviction is the result of either or both ; and 
this result, as a natural, or as a supernatural 
effect, is a question between a man and his 
own powers of reason, or between a man and 
his God ; and therefore not properly cognizable 
by any other man, or controllable by any 
human tribunal. 

VIII. 

It has been invariably found that, where 
the mind has had its free exercise, man- 
kind have founded different points of faith 
on the same system of religion ; and that such 
variation arises from the varied dispositions 
of men, and proves the absurdity of restraint, 
or of legislating on matters of religious 
opinion. 

IX. 

Any assumed common law, on which to 
found a religious prosecution, can be no other 
than the law of prejudice, malice, and perse- 
cution, inherent in all ages in the minds of 
wicked and unjust men ; and is the very same 
law, having the same sources, as the pre- 
tended laws under which Socrates was poi- 
soned and Jesus Christ crucified. 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 121 



If this right were subject to any re- 
striction or limitation, as far as regards 
subjects and questions of general interest, it 
would be altogether useless ; for the publica- 
tion of error often leads to the detection of 
truth ; and, while free discussion and publica- 
tion are allowed, error is harmless, because 
it can by the same means be refuted. 

XI. 

If the opinions of persons in authority 
were admitted as standards of truth, just 
as the opinions of prosecutors are in any 
prosecution assumed to be standards of 
truth, we might at this day, by parity of 
reasoning, have been involved in the darkness 
of Pagan worship, of Druidical rites, of Roman 
mythology, and of Popish superstition ; all of 
which have successively been standards of 
truth among the public authorities of former 



XII. 

In every Christian country in Europe, 
the utmost latitude of free publication has 
been practised with impunity ; particularly 

vol. i. G 



122 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

in France, Holland, Switzerland, and Prussia : 
even under the despotic sway of the Bourbons 
the writings of Voltaire, Diderot, D'Alembert, 
Rousseau, Volney, and others, were freely 
published, and did not deprive their authors 
of honours and renown. 

XIII. 

The employment of the force of law, or of 
the civil and military power, to maintain opi- 
nions, affords a demonstrative proof, that 
those who consider it necessary to resort to 
such weapons, must know that their opinions 
are unsupportable by reasoning, and aware 
that they are not upheld by omnipotent power. 

xiv. 

All the attempts to render courts of law, 
or mere human tribunals, standards of theo- 
logical opinions, have led to the various wicked, 
bloody, and disgraceful, martyrdoms, which 
stain the pages of history; at which every 
succeeding: age blushes for the errors, absurdi- 
ties, and crimes, of preceding ages. 

xv. 
'/ any erroneous, persecuting, vindic- 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 123 

tive, and intolerant, proceeding, were to 
lead to any cruel punishment, the proceed- 
ings of the court, and all concerned in them, 
would be viewed by sensible, just, and liberal, 
contemporaries, and by every man in future 
ages, with the abhorrence in which all men 
hold the courts of Inquisition, and those juris- 
dictions of barbarous times by which similar 
martyrdoms have been perpetrated. 

XVI. 

Allegiance and submission are compatible 
with every religion, and exist, as matters of 
fact, with equal force in all nations. Allegi- 
ance is as strong and operative in Italy as in 
England, in Holland as in Spain, in Turkey 
as in France, and in China as in Russia, 
though the spiritual faith and the forms of 
religion are, in each, so different. The King 
of England has loyal and submissive subjects 
of all religions in the respective British colo- 
nies. Religion has not, therefore, more con- 
nexion with allegiance, or with loyalty and 
submission, than with the stature or colour of 
men, or the fashion of their clothing. 

XVII. 

It is not more necessary that good subjects 



124 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

should be of the same religion , than that they 
should be six feet high, or wear brown or scar- 
Jet colours, close coats, or flowing robes. Al- 
legiance, the bond of society, is the same in the 
Turk, the Gentoo, the Protestant, and the 
Catholic. The duties of a privy counsellor, 
or other servant of the state, are prompted 
by his allegiance and by his personal inter- 
ests, not by his spiritual opinions. 

XVIII. 

There is no crime in seeking to make 
proselytes ; but, as every religion is believed 
by its votaries to be true, it would be thought 
officious, arrogant, and impertinent, if the 
various religions were to send missionaries 
into Britain to convert us. Some would 
laugh at them, and others would be disposed 
to stone them ; while, as all religion is pro- 
fessed to be derived from Heaven, we should 
tell them that, if God willed, we should be- 
come Mahometans, Brahmins, Boodists, &c. 
&c. without theh puny interference. Let the 
religion of others alone, unless you have cre- 
dentials from heaven in the alleged apostolic 
powers of the gift of tongues, working of 
miracles, and raising the dead ; for, without 



EELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 125 

these, it is presumption to interfere with 
others, and your only duty on this subject is to 
look to yourself. 

XIX. 

The best rule about religion for an honest 
man is not to affect to believe that which does 
not convince his own understanding ; and, to 
consider the understanding with which the 
God of nature has endowed him as the sufficient 
rule of his faith on all subjects whatever, 
Religions are to be respected because they aid 
the law in correcting the ferocity of men, and 
enabling them to promote each other's welfare 
in society ; and that which is established in a 
country is always the best, if it do not med- 
dle with politics and government, because it 
accords with men's earliest feelings ; and 
therefore any attempt to change it, leads to 
discord and bloodshed. 

xx. 

Though one man may affirm the Trinity, 
and another deny it ; one the doctrine of Tran- 
substantiation, and another deny it ; one affirm 
the sleep in the grave till the resurrection of 
the body, another an intermediate purgatory, 



126 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

and another the immediate transfer of the 
soul to heaven ; one maintain the supremacy 
of the Pope, and another of the King of Eng- 
land ; one assert that Jesus, the son of Sirach, 
was the Jesus of the Evangelists, and another 
maintain that two contemporaries of the same 
name taught the same doctrines, or that the 
two were not contemporary ; one prefer 
the Sabbath of the commandments, and 
another the Sabbath of human authority ; — 
yet, from all these opinions, their collision and 
discussion, truth must finally be elicited, if 
enquiry is unrestricted,' and discussion free ; 
while, without such freedom, truth might be 
extinguished, and belief become hollow and 
servile. 

xxi. 
Religious opinions are not necessarily con- 
nected with the state, nor with the duties of 
good subjects ; and, if connected, or attempted 
to be connected, an incongruity of social rela- 
tions would arise ; for, if one were made a 
test of the other, such test would serve as a 
bribe to enforce conformity, which would be 
accepted by the insincere, and operate only as 
an exclusion of sincerity. 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 127 

XXIL 

Religious tests are an infringement of 
liberty of conscience, because, without their 
conformity, good men would be deprived of 
their rights of citizenship ; for every man, per- 
sonally deserving, has an unalienable right to 
participate in the honours and emoluments of 
the society to which he contributes his talents 
and industry, without reference to his reli- 
gious faith, to his stature, or to any circum- 
stance unconnected with his allegiance. 

XXIII. 

If the church of God is in every man's own 
conscience, it is, as it ought to be, independ- 
ent of the fluctuations of human affairs, and it 
ought not to be in the power of one man, 
owing to the existence of a state religion, to 
render a Catholic people Protestant, nor of a 
woman to render them Catholic again y nor of 
her successor to restore them again to Pro- 
testantism, as has happened in England. 

XXIV. 

Religion, as in the United States of Ame- 
rica, should be the personal and conscientious 
concern of every man with God; it should 

g2 



128 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

have as many centres as there are men's 
hearts, and its fate would not then be mingled 
with that of establishments, while that which 
is best would flourish the most- 

xxv. 

The ministers of religion should be liberally 
supported by public assessments, distributed 
according to the number of souls of whom they 
are the approved guardians. The interests of 
religion might be guarded in the legislature, 
by representatives elected from the body of 
religious ministers. 

XXVI. 

Under such a system, there might be 
greater variety of opinions, but there would be 
more sincerity and fewer hypocrites; while 
truth would prevail, or have a fair chance of 
prevailing, because it would be wholly unin-* 
fluenced by sinister motives and sordid calcu- 
lations. 

XXVII. 

If there were no exclusive church establish- 
ment, there could exist no jealousies in regard 
to its support; but, if one were set up, it might 



RELIGIOUS LIBERTY. 129 

be likened to the statue of Nebuchadnezzar, 
the worship of which might be imposed, but 
such worship would obviously be a duty wholly 
unconnected v, ith the essential duties of good 
and useful subjects. 

XXVIII. 

Under a system in which the alliance of 
religious faith and political obligations was 
dissolved, the ministers of religion might 
nevertheless be integrated with society, and 
all institutions connected with education be 
preserved and honoured, while sound piety 
and superior learning would maintain their 
wonted ascendancy, and the spirit of religions 
proselytism would cease to be excited by the 
ambition of directing the state, or monopo- 
lizing the exclusive revenues of the state 
church. 

XXIX. 

Allegiance, obedience, submission, talent, 
and integrity, should be the only qualifying 
tests of public confidence and employment; 
for these are the only qualities really connected 
with duties to the state and country, 



GOLDEN RULES TO BE REMEMBERED 
IN THE STUDY OF NATURE, AND 
METAPHYSICAL PHILOSOPHY. 



I. 

Remember that reason, truth, and demon- 
stration, are the only authorities in Philosophy ; 
and that the faith of no man is a proper 
foundation of the faith of another, unless his 
doctrine be sustained by reason, truth, and 
demonstration. 

n. 

Remember that we only know Nature in the 
degree in which it is cognizable by our senses, 
and not otherwise ; that our senses take cosrni- 
zance only of material existences, or of matter in 
various densities and forms ; and that all our 
reflections and reasonings are founded on ! 
knowledge thus acquired. 

in. 
Remember that the only other thing besides 



STUDY OF NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 181 

matter, with which, by experience, we become 
acquainted, is the space in which matter is 
contained; and that these two things, matter 
and space, are always, within equal dimen- 
sions, inversely as each other. 

IV. 

Remember that matter transferred from one 
part of space to another, is ^then said to be 
moved; and the quantity of motion is the 
quantity of space moved through by the same 
quantity of matter ; consequently, both matter 
and space are necessary to motion. 

v. 

Remember that bodies in motion move 
other bodies by impact, change their place or 
relative position, and produce new disposi- 
tions, called phenomena ; which capability of 
producing change, is called force or power, 
and no other force or power is either conceiva- 
ble or necessary. 

VI. 

Remember that all force, or power, is matter 
in motion; and that there is no other known 
or justly-imaginable force, besides matter in 



182 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

motion : consequently, that power, force, and 
matter in motion, are convertible terms, of 
which matter and space are the essential 
components, 

VII. 

Remember that without matter there could 
be no force, and without space, no force J — 
matter and space are, therefore, the primary 
causes of all phenomena; and, wherever there 
are phenomena^ there are forces to produce 
them, or some matter in some motion. 

vnr. 
Remember that the assigning of any cause 
but the true cause, leads to false analogies, 
obstructs the progress of science, and leads to 
an endless labyrinth of errors. 

IX. 

Remember, universally, that the causes of 
all phenomena are some matter in some mo- 
tion ; and that, whenever any other causes are 
assumed by writers on these subjects, as pow- 
ers of attraction, repulsion, gravitation, calo- 
ric, chemistry, &c. &c. all these powers are so 
many gross absurdities introduced by senti- 
ments of superstition, or are frauds to disguise 

6 



STUDY OF NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY, 133 

ignorance of the true cause, and impose on 
credulity by equivocal and high-sounding 
words. — See Appendix. 

x. 

Remember that action is the imparting of 
force from one body or atom to another ; that 
re-action is the reception or division of the 
said force ; that friction is a mode of parting 
with motion by contact ; or by a direction 
of motion different from the direction caused 
by centripetal force, vulgarly called weight, 
or, learnedly, gravity ; that resistance is a 
mode of parting with motion to successive 
atoms ; and that inertia is a pre-existing 
force in a direction contrary to that of a force 
applied ; consequently, if any bodies existed 
which were already unmoved, they would 
have no inertia. 

XI. 

Remember that the assumed powers of 
attraction, of whatever kind, are grossly ab- 
surd, because every motion takes place only in 
the direction of the acting force ; and, when 
bodies go together, the motion of each must 
be derived from the opposite side, where the 



134 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

other body is not ; and be also, in each, actually 
contrary to the resulting motion of the other 
body. — See Appendix. 

xii. 

Remember that the assumed powers of 
repulsion, of whatever kind, are grossly absurd, 
because each of the bodies moves in a con- 
trary direction ; and a body moving one way 
cannot produce a motion in another body in 
a contrary direction to its own motion. 

XIII. 

Remember that, as there is no attraction, 
there is no universal gravitation ; and that 
weight (disingenuously translated into gravi- 
tation) is but a motion or endeavour to move 
in a particular direction, from some competent 
force, or some transfer of other motions 
operating in that direction. 

XIV. 

Remember that, in every body in motion, 
the centre of the momentum is the centre of 
the number of atoms of which it consists ; 
and that, therefore, all the parts act and re-act 
mutually and generally with reference to that 






STUDY OF NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 135 

centre : consequently, this mechanical principle 
is the sufficient general cause of the fall of 
parts of bodies in common motions towards 
their common centre of motion, as in planetary 
bodies, 

xv. 

Remember that the two-fold motions of the 
earth, and all planets, are the competent cause 
of the fall of all the parts towards the centre, 
and the sufficient local cause of the aggrega- 
tion of all planetary masses, and of the direc« 
tion of every part towards the common centre 
of their motions- 

XVI. 

Remember that caloric, or the matter of 
heat, is a mere fancy, no heat being known 
distinct from matter; and the causes being 
universally some collision, friction, or percus- 
sion of matter, or some fixation of atoms pre- 
viously in motion, which, in fixing, impart 
their previous motions, and thereby exhibit 
the perception of heat, and dispersive powers 
on other atoms. 

xv it. 
Remember that chemistry is the phenomena 



136 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

of atoms, and that these in different shapes 
and motions are and must be competent to 
produce all the various phenomena. 

XVIII. 

Remember that gas universally consists of 
atoms, which deflect one another into circular 
motions, the density being inversely as the 
orbits ; and these, being as the original ex- 
citement of motion, according to the quantity 
of atoms fixed by the fire. 

XIX. 

Remember that, as re-action determines 
the orbits of the atoms of gas, or the density 
of gas, so space must necessarily be full of 
gas ; and that all forces and motions, propa- 
gated within gases or fluids, radiate inversely 
as the squares of the distances ; in proof of 
which universal diffusion of gas, it appears 
that the forces of the sun and planets are 
diffused according to that necessary law of 
the gazeous radiation of force. 

xx. 

Remember that action and re-action are 
equal ; and, consequently, that the force of the 



STUDY OF NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 1ST 

solar motions, diffused according to the above 
law, combined with the re-action of each 
planet, is the competent cause of the orbi- 
cular motions of the several planets. 

XXI. 

Remember that the earth and moon form a 
combined system of bodies moved by the solar 
forces acting on their fulcrum ; towards which 
fulcrum, as the centre of the common force, the 
mobile waters always direct themselves, so as 
to cause the tides. — See Appendix. 

xxii. 

Remember that the elliptical orbits of the 
planets can be occasioned only by their own 
varied re-actions to the common Sun ; and 
that the competent cause of such varied re- 
action, is the accommodating position of the 
mobile waters, just as they are known to 
exist, in different quantities, in the northern 
and southern hemispheres of the earth. 

XXIII. 

Remember that these waters enlarge their 
own beds by the re-actions and attrition of 
land; and that, in consequence, the line of 



188 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

Apsides progresses through the ecliptic at 
the ascertained present rate of 20,900 years 
for the entire circle; and hence, that, within 
such period, the ocean passes, and has often 
passed, from one hemisphere to the other, 
occasioning all the varied strata of land and 
marine remains. 

XXIV. 

Remember that the rotation of the earth and 
planets on their axes, unaccordant with any 
other theory, arises from the re-action of the 
medium of space towards and through which 
the planet is progressing, like the rotation of 
cannon-balls, or bowls ; and that, as the ac- 
tion of propulsion is greatest on the near hemis- 
phere, so the re-action is also greatest in that 
hemisphere; and thus the earth, in progressing 
from east to west, turns on its near-side from 
west to east, and on its off-side from east to 
west ; though this phenomenon may be also 
connected with the motions of the system 
of the earth and moon, and the tides be con- 
sidered as mere consequences of inequalities of 
action and re-action. 

xxv. 
Remember that the solar forces are great- 



STUDY OF NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 189 

est in the plane of the sun's equator, but 
governed in width by the inclination of his 
axis; and hence the breadth of the ecliptic, 
or the general planetary orbits. 

XXVI. 

Remember that comets move across the 
plane of the solar system at large angles, or 
inclinations, from the hemispheres of space 
unoccupied by planets, but are deflected from 
their course as they pass through the plane 
of the solar forces; and hence their neces- 
sary peculiar orbits. 

XXVII. 

Remember that the luminous projections 
from comets are simple refractions and con- 
densations of solar light, reflected from the 
medium, or gas, of space; and affording, by 
such reflection, ocular proof of the univer- 
sal existence of such gas, while they are inca- 
pable of the portentous effects ascribed to them 
by mistaken or superstitious writers. 

XXVIII. 

Remember that all gas must, of necessity, 
expand as far as other re-actions will permit ; 



140 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY* 

for gas is simply projected atoms deflected 
into orbits by other atoms previously existing 
in the space ; consequently, expansion will be 
determined by mere re-action, and gas must 
expend wherever there is space unoccupied. 

XXIX. 

Remember that the peculiar phenomena of 
the terrestrial atmosphere, in weight equal to 
elasticity, is simply occasioned by the globe 
of the earth moving through the gas of space, 
and rotating within it; by which the same 
effect is produced on the adjacent gas as on 
other bodies connected with the earth, and 
the re-action and the collision determine the 
elasticity. 

xxx. 

Remember that the principle of gaseous 
expansion renders it unavoidable that every 
equal space should possess an equal quantity 
of momenta in the atoms within it \ or that 
the gaseous atoms around it must press and 
act upon it, so as to endeavour, with a given 
force, to render the momenta equal ; and 
hence, the action of gases on solids, and the 
local atmospheres of surfaces, created by the 



STUDY OF NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 141 

adjoining gas, and the substance of the body 
abraded by the action of the gas. 

XXXI. 

Remember that aerial gas, and gases in 
general, exist in various combinations of large 
and small atoms, revolving in harmonious 
and convenient juxta-position, to which varie- 
ties, in positive and relative powers, the names 
of heat-making, oxygen, nitrogen, hydrogen, 
&c. have been conveniently given. 

XXXII. 

Remember that the same excitement of 
motion, or different re-actions of boundary 
surfaces, will differently affect the atoms of 
heterogeneous gas, and thereby separate them 
within the excited space or boundary surfaces ; 
and this result of separation, under different 
circumstances, displays all the phenomena 
called electric, galvanic, and magnetic. 

XXXIII. 

Remember that, as the force of excitement, 
and varied re-action, cause the separation, so 
re-union, or restoration to a state of convenient 
juxta-position, is sought with an equal force ; 



142 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

consequently, if any light body, or any body 
moveable with less force than that of re- 
union, is placed in the disturbed space, it 
will be propelled from side to side ; which 
propulsions have been, in the superstitious 
jargon of philosophy, called attractions and 
repulsions, and ascribed to the unintelligible 
action of some incomprehensible fluids. 

XXXIV. 

Remember that whenever certain gaseous 
atoms are, by any atomic excitement, intensely 
propelled, they create the perception of light ; 
and this is the case during the union of oxy- 
gen and hydrogen gases, after the evolution 
of the latter, in connexion with atoms of 
carbon ; during which the oxygen becoming 
fixed, creates the local heat, and its previous 
motions imparted to the gas at the place, 
cause its atoms to propel one another around, as 
they fill the surrounding space, and thus they 
propagate distant atomic affections called 
Light. 

XXXV. 

Remember that light or flame is universally 
a mechanical atomic affection, produced by 
the fixation of gas in certain combinations ; 



STUDY OF NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 148 

that electrical light is the effect of the re- 
combination of a surface through a single 
point ; that the flame of combustion is the 
effect of the fixation of oxygen atoms, whose 
previous motions are dispersed around in 
trains from one atom to the next ; and that, 
whatever is calculated to propagate an intense 
atomic propulsion from atom to atom, is a 
cause of light. 

XXXVI. 

Remember that light must be as various 
as the atoms affected ; hence the phenomena 
of the prismatic spectrum, which exhibits 
all the atoms combined in the atmosphere, 
in mechanical separation, in their gradations 
of energy or colour ; and in chemical qualities 
from end to end, exactly corresponding ; con- 
sequently, the prism, in transmitting excited 
atoms, is in its spectrum a test of the atoms 
in the atmosphere, and the most delicate test 
ever contrived. 

XXXVII. 

Remember that sound is a gross vibration 
of all the atoms of the same kind ; that each 
kind produces different tones ; that light and 
sound are two several modes of affecting the 



144 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

same medium,, (light being an atomic pro- 
pulsion of atom against atGm 5 and sound a 
general action of the mass ;) that the identi- 
cal atoms do not travel more in light than in 
sound ; and, in fine, that the prismatic and 
diatonic scales accord in proportions, because 
each is produced by mechanical affections of 
the very same medium. 

XXXVIII. 

Remember that, as motion and force exist 
wherever there is gas, so, whatever is so con- 
stituted as to assimilate and fix certain gase- 
ous atoms, acquires the previous momenta of 
those atoms, and is capable of displaying their 
energy : and this is the condition of all ani mated 
nature, for all animals are provided with lungs, 
or pneumatic and chemical apparatus for in- 
haling and fixing oxygenous gas, the motions 
of which, imparted to them, constitute their 
life, strength, and energy. 

xxxix. 

Remember that, as heat is atomic motion, so 

the motion of the gas transferred to the animal 

also imparts the perception called heat ; and 

its accumulation, dispersion of atoms, or per- 



NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 145 

spiration ; that obstructed radiation produces 
accelerated action, or fever; and, in fine, that 
gas, or atoms in motion, are the primum mo- 
bile of the animal system, which acts like a 
loco-motive steam-engine against the earth; 
and, by re-action, performs all the functions of 
loco-motion and animal strength, 

XL. 

Remember that the atmosphere is composed 
of primary principles, called the oxygenous and 
the nitrogenous ; and that these principles, in 
separation, produce the phenomena of electri- 
city ; that, therefore, the fixation of oxygen in 
the lungs produces a re-action of nitrogen at 
the skin : and hence the absorption of nitrogen, 
the discolouring of the blood, and that flitting 
action and re -action of which the sensitive 
animal is the intermediate result. 

XLI. 

Remember that the processes of attrition 
and amalgamation, in animal circulations and 
assimilations, are such as would generate the 
medium atoms of nitrogen from the hydrogen 
of food, and the oxygen of respiration ; and 
that animals may hence be an elaboratory of 

VOL. I. H 



146 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

nitrogen, while this process points out the 
nature of that gas in accordance with its 
middle position in the prismatic decomposi- 
tion of atmospheric air. 

XLII. 

Remember that animals do not think per 
se; that experience and education gradually 
develope their powers ; that their habits are 
determined by their forms and capabilities ; 
and that their senses for discrimination indi- 
cate their individual free-agency, in subordi- 
nation to more general laws. 

XLIII. 

Remember that the senses of individuality, 
consciousness, and the power of saying / am, 
are necessary results of continued personal 
experience; and that it would be most whimsi- 
cal if all the senses, and the varied actions and 
re-actions of one animal, generated any per- 
ceptions for another, or for any but their own 
patient ; hence that every animal, in its sen- 
sitive and reasoning powers, is made up, or is 
a mere result, of his experience ; one intellec- 
tual effect being a cause of another effect, 



Mature and philosophy. 147 

While none of these phaenomena belong to the 
infant animal as qualities or powers per se. 

XLIV. 

Remember that vegetables subsist, like ani- 
mals, by economising the gases ; but, being 
fixed in one spot, and having no choice, they 
have no senses or nervous system for appropri- 
ating experience, and reasoning by analogy ; 
but that animals for loco-motion have internal 
cavities for soil and roots, which extend from 
those cavities through connecting vessels to 
nurture the system, with Senses to avoid dan- 
gers, and discriminate the soil adapted to the 
cavity and roots of their stomachs. 

XLV. 

Remember that vegetables and animals are 
varieties of existence, whose essential distinc- 
tion is the animal faculty of moving about ; to 
sustain which, new powers of sensation, per- 
ception, memory, and reasoning by analogy, 
are necessary, with a peculiarity of structure 
by which the roots centre in the cavity of the 
stomach, into which cavity suitable soil is to 
be put, diseases following if the roots are 
rotted by too much manure, or artificial com- 



148 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

post, as alcohol, spices, &c. the progression 
of nature teaching, that atoms generate orga- 
nic bodies, then vegetables, and then animals. 

XLVI. 

Remember that the arithmetical ratio by 
which assimilation of food and diminution 
take place, arrives at a limit, and determines 
the bulk and maturity of the vegetable and 
animal; that the energies are then counterba- 
lanced by the exhaustion, and the being ceases 
by the same law which governed its growth, — 
animal and vegetable life being exactly repre- 
sented by regular curves, — an ascent in youth, 
an apex at maturity, and then a similar descent 
in age, all regular and proportional. 

XL VII. 

Remember that all organized nature is 
divided into male and female, because all 
causation consists of action and re-action, and 
these require an agent and patient to produce 
a third thing, or new being; and also because, 
as reproduction thus requires the concurrence of 
separated powers, the presence of support, or 
means of life, is at the same time implied. 



NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 149 

XLVIII. 

Remember that all things that exist are 
physically fit; and, while they continue to 
exist, are in harmony, and must be in har- 
mony, with all other things ; that unfitness, or 
want of harmony, leads to extinction and 
death ; and that, therefore, there is an universal 
harmony in regard to all existing things, and 
an exact balance of causes and effects. 

XLIX. 

Remember that the difficulty of analysis is 
accelerated by the complication of the thing to 
be examined ; and that, therefore, the metaphy- 
sical and medical schools involve themselves in 
a climax of absurdities and intellectual mys- 
teries, by their attempted analysis of educated 
and perfected animals, and adopting the re- 
sults as powers per se. 



Remember that accessions of attributes are 
equivalent to harmonious final causes; and 
that, therefore, all nature is best examined in 
primitive forms and infant stages ; for the addi- 
tions, and even accumulations, of attributes, 
then involve no difficulties. 



1 5a 



SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 



LI. 

Remember that, if thus examined, the 
famed principle of life, added to matter, in 
vegetables and animals, will be found to be the 
faculty or capability of fixing the moving atoms 
of gas, and of receiving and appropriating 
their momenta, from which result heat, cir-* 
culation, and muscular vigour. 

MI. 

Remember that, as all respiration produces 
separation of the gaseous constituents ; and 
that, as their solicited re-union constitutes 
electricity and galvanism in one relation, so^ 
in another ; it constitutes nervous excitement, 
and the energy of animal chemistry. 

LIH. 

Remember that, as new-born infants have no 
perceptions, volitions, thoughts, reasonings, 
language, abstractions, &c, &c. so all these 
powers do not belong to the animal perse, but 
are accidents and additions, and not to be 
treated of as integral necessary parts of the 
educated man. 

LIV, 

Remember that the infant organization of 



NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 151 

man comes into the world an assemblage of 
mere capabilities, like the young of other 
animals, consisting of respiratory organs for 
fixing in their systems the motions of the 
atoms of the gaseous atmosphere, with a 
stomach to receive nutritive soil for assimi- 
lation and elimination ; with a system of 
circulating vessels and jointed muscles for 
varied directions of leverage ; and with a 
medullary system, capable, by its reticular 
construction, of transferring excitements from 
without to the mechanical focus in the brain, 
which, in all animals, treasures experience, 
and reasons by analogy. 

LV. 

Remember that the medullary system of 
man is more refined, subtle, and complicated, 
than that of other animals ; hence its educa- 
tion is prolonged, while the results are his 
intellectual ascendancy over them ; and is 
capable of such variation, that, in different 
parts of the world, the same organization, by 
education, becomes either an Englishman or 
a Chinese, a Frenchman or a Tartar, a Chris- 
tian or a Mahomedan, a Brahmin or a Pope, 
a vulgar man or a polished gentleman. 



152 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

LVI. 

Remember that men, in the development of 
their medullary system, assume every variety 
of character, and, in respect to their conduct, 
opinions, religion, habits, language, and 
propensities, are altogether artificial, and 
totally unlike one another, except in having 
plastic common powers, capable at the same 
time of being totally opposite to what they 
are in their ultimate characteristics. The 
difference between men and animals consists 
in the varied subtlety and complication of the 
medullary system, while the differences between 
men consist in the varied education of the 
medullary system. 

LVIL 

Remember that the subtlety of the medul- 
lary system of man, aided by the organs of 
voice, and the faculty of the hands, generates 
various ultimate phenomena, not developed 
by more simple systems of brain and nerves : 
hence the complicated passions, virtues, and 
vices, successively acquired and exhibited by 
the human race ; the manoeuvres by which 
manual labour is shifted from one to another ; 
the intrigues and coquetry of the sexes; the 



NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 153 

abuses of all social arrangements and insti- 
tutions; and the necessity of social laws, 
incessant legislation, moral obligations, and 
even of religious institutions, for restraint, 
coercion, and regulation. 

LVIII. 

Remember that, as it is with man, so it is 
with all animals : they have senses and capabi- 
lities, simple or complex, — if simple, soon edu- 
cated, — if complex, long in training ; while 
their senses and experience would be utterly- 
useless, unless they universally possessed 
powers of memory, and a capability of rea- 
soning by analogy. 

LIX. 

Remember that space, or actual extension, 
is the most simple, pure, eternal, necessary, 
and immutable, object of human cognizance ; 
that it is the recipient of all matter, and the 
stage for displaying the phenomena of all 
material existence ; that it is the essential in- 
gredient of all power, because power is as 
velocity, or as the space occupied in the same 
time ; that it seems, therefore, to be the ever- 
lasting womb of nature which evolves all 

h2 



154 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

things, and into whose bosom all things 
return, and that it is not the less an universal 
actuality because essentially immaterial. 

LX. 

Remember that time is the measure of 
space, or the measure of motion, or the mea- 
sure of successive relations or phenomena ; 
that it is eternal, because changes have eternal 
succession, and because space, which it mea- 
sures, is infinite in extent ; that space by reci- 
procity is infinite, because progression in eter- 
nal time could reach no finite boundary ; that 
time is a negation of power, which is directly 
as the space occupied, but inversely as the 
time ; while, with reference to our perceptions, 
Time is commensurate with them, and 
merely relative, being inversely as our past 
experience, or long in youth and short in old 
age ; long during the intense feeling of pain, 
or deferred hope, when moments are counted ; 
and short in seasons of gaiety, when impres- 
sions are volatilized by the imagination ; yet 
averaged by numbers of individuals, and equal 
in its divided sum to its equality in nature. 

LXI. 

Remember that the sublime and necessary 

6 



NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 155 

harmony of nature ought to check the pre- 
sumptive pride of man, who, instead of as- 
suming that all things were made for his use, 
abuse, and caprice, and becoming the univer- 
sal destroyer of all objects of his senseless 
aversion, ought, with humility, to feel his 
subservience to nature, and to accommodate 
his own existence to that of all the other 
existences evolved by the harmony of the 
unceasing creation ; and, if he should inso- 
lently assert, that his caprices are part of that 
harmony, let him look to Asia, to Palestine, 
and to Africa, countries which he has rendered 
waste by his desolating pride, ignorance, and 
improvidence. 

LXII. 

Remember that matter, in its abstraction 
and essence, is display of power, absolute 
with reference to the totality, but relative 
with reference to the parts; that power is 
directly as space, or motion, or velocity ; and 
inversely as matter or resistance; that evi- 
dence of resistance is evidence that space is 
filled with power, with universal re-action, or 
with matter, either substantially, or in such 
motion as to occupy every point of space in 
every infinitessimal of time; consequently^ 



156 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

that matter and space are co-extensive ; that 
matter and space are inversely as each other ; 
and as space does not move, so all power is 
as the matter, or as the number of atoms 
moved, power being a mere relation of mat- 
ter ; and that, as matter exists in continuity 
or proximity, so the definite power of one 
atom is transferred to others, sometimes 
producing visible changes, and, at other times, 
being indefinitely subdivided without sensible 
disturbance .. 

LXIII. 

Remember, that what we call substance, 
is merely a collection of powers within certain 
dimensions of space : that the qualities are 
mere relations to our powers, perceptions, or 
tests, which to us are so many standards of 
distinction; that the matter exists as much 
as we exist, because action and re-action are 
always equal ; that, nevertheless, our tests 
being relative, we can conceive no better of 
the depths of space, or indefinite smallness 
of atoms, than we do of the lengths or infini- 
tude of space, though it is obvious that all 
definite bodies are composed of such indefi- 
nitely small atoms, with which all power or 



NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 157 

motion begins ; that these nascent points 
combined, or partly simple and partly com- 
bined, or wholly combined, constitute, in 
relation, proximity, or juxta-position, the 
solids, fluids, and gases, which compose 
planets and systems of planets, in all the 
varieties of body which subsist upon and 
within them. 

LXIV. 

Remember that the final cause of all things 
is intimately blended with the harmony of the 
whole ; that particular existences are neces- 
sary results of that harmony, cause and effect 
being like the two ends of a lever, simulta- 
neously moving on a fulcrum ; that nature is 
an active totality, of which particulars are 
patients, live if you can, being the law of 
existence ; while the general harmony consti- 
tutes a perfect result. 

LXV. 

Remember that, although it is difficult to 
comprehend the harmonious connexion of 
the small with the great, yet, as the motions 
of the solar heat tend to volatilize the earth, 
so vegetables simultaneously perform a fixing 



158 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

process, while the loco-motive organizations 
not merely refix and return to the earth what 
might otherwise be diffused in space, but 
probably serve to scatter and deflect motions 
which continued impulsions might render 
accelerative ; while the cause and the conse- 
quence, and the consequence and the cause, 
produce an actual result in accordance and 
harmony. 

LXVI. 

Remember that, although a sort of legerde- 
main change of the date of the year, as 1809 to 
1890, changes all the particular organizations 
on the earth, yet the various circles of causes, 
and the regular series of antagonist powers, 
maintain a succession, and that the sum, or 
totality, is on the whole earth alike, accompa- 
nied by the same passions, the same generated 
sense of identity, and effecting the same 
purposes in the great, wonderful, and harmo- 
nious scheme of nature. 

LXVII. 

Remember that, if the simple declarations 
and record of facts be considered as philo- 
sophy, the vulgar are as wise as the philoso- 



NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 159 

phers ; and that, although facts are the data 
of philosophers, on which to generalize and 
infer causes, yet he who assembles them is 
merely a useful pioneer, and not, therefore, 
a philosopher, — an inference which applies 
equally to phaenomena observed, and to the 
detection of any arithmetical law of their 
action. 

LXVIII. 

Remember that there is no philosophy in 
the vulgar fact, that all terrestrial bodies fall 
towards the centre of the earth ; no philoso^ 
phy in the vulgar fact, that twice the quantity 
falls with twice the force ; nor any philosophy 
in calling the phsenomenon by the vulgar name 
of weight, or in translating this name into 
gravitation; while it is an insult, both on 
reason and philosophy, to consider this coin- 
age of language as an explication of the 
cause of the phenomena. 

LXIX. 

Remember that Newton himself did not 
use the term gravitation as a cause, but left 
the ignominy of this abuse of it to his fol- 
lowers ; that, nevertheless, he assumed it to 



160 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

be a central force any how produced, and 
under the notion of this indifference, as to 
the cause, extended it in a particular direction 
through the universe, founding on this false 
analogy of a universal central force, his system 
of physics. 

LXX. 

Remember that no such central force as 
that assumed by Newton can exist, simply 
because bodies cannot act where they are not, 
and even push each other from their opposite 
sides, where neither is present ; that, there- 
fore, the earth does not push a stone on its 
upward side; nor the earth, the moon, at 
its opposite side ; nor the moon the earth, at 
the antipodes ; nor the sun the planets, on 
their opposite sides ; nor the planets one 
another : all which suppositions are logically 
absurd ; and belief in them is a degradation 
of human reason. 

LXXI. 

Remember that the basis of superstition is 
the assigning of effects to causes not in 
mechanical and material connexion ; and, if 
in connexion, not in power, or direction of 



NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 161 

power, corresponding with the magnitude or 
circumstances of the effect ; and that such 
basis of superstition is the radical error of the 
physics of Newton, the chemistry of Lavoi- 
sier, the miracles of priestcraft, and the won- 
ders of enchantment. Thev teach the exist- 
ence of powers per se, and powers sni generis^ 
as short roads to knowledge ; and conceal 
their ignorance., by using terms which merely 
mystify the understandings of their disciples, 

LXXIL 

Remember that the proof of one thing is 
not a proof of another thing, however adroitly 
it may be attempted to ally them ; and that 
this false alliance was made by Newton when 
he united his hypothetical physical powers to 
geometrical diagrams, and then, by demon- 
strations in regard to the latter, conceived 
that he equally demonstrated the former. 

LXXIII. 

Remember that truth is the sole object of 
philosophical enquiry, and that one funda- 
mental truth serves as the root of others, 
constituting the tree of knowledge ; conse- 
quently, it is not indifferent whether we 



162 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

ascribe true or false causes to phenomena ; 
and questions about causes are not disputes 
about mere names, as many pretend, who 
seek a base apology for teaching and cherish- 
ing errors, which they cannot defend by- 
direct reasoning. 

LXXIV. 

Remember that the principle that bodies 
act in power, where they are not present, 
and in directions contrary to that in which 
they are moving, are gross absurdities; and 
yet these absurdities are the foundations of all 
those modes of acting by attraction and re- 
pulsion, which men in superstitious ages 
introduced into nature, which are to this 
day applied to illustrate all kinds of pheno- 
mena, and tenaciously maintained by all socie- 
ties and universities in the civilized world. 

LXXV. 

Remember that no planetary phenomena 
ever exhibited any attractive or central force; 
that the clusters, or systems of fixed stars, 
indicate its non-existence, — even if so absurd 
principle were worthy of a formal argument ; 
that the law, called the law of gravitation, I 



NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 163 

is the law with which all forces are necessarily 
diverged through a gaseous or fluid medium; 
that mutual action and re-action, under that 
law, are the competent causes of the motions 
of the planets ; that the motion of bodies, 
towards the centre of the earth, is a local 
effect of subordination to the great terrestrial 
motions; and, consequently, that the entire 
doctrine of universal gravitation, with its 
whimsical projectile force, and its monstrous 
vacuum in space, is an airy dream of specu- 
lative philosophers. 

LXXVI* 

Remember that, whatever is the patient of 
the regular motions of the universe, is the 
patient of unalterable necessity ; but, when- 
ever motions are modified by new centres, 
turned into new directions, and have a fulcrum 
of variable power, they cease to be continui- 
ties of the general motions of the universe. 
Such is the mind or brain, or intellectual ful- 
crum of an animal. It sees and feels motions 
as on one side of a lever, but these motions are 
modified on the other side by the fulcrum of 
self-love, by experience, by error, by truth, 
and all the passions, and these determine the 



164 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

result; and, therefore, with reference to the 
deciding animal, are free. The senses and 
perceptions, in truth, confer choice on the 
animal, and qualify it to be free, by reasoning 
not always perfect, and therefore not ne- 
cessary. 

LXXVII. 

Remember that the pernicious doctrine of 
fatality, in regard to human and animal life, 
arises from three mistakes : — one, a confounding 
of phenomena, which result from the successive 
transfers of eternal motion from one passive 
body to another, with phenomena which 
arise from motions that are deflected, divided, 
and newly applied by the concentrated powers 
of animal microcosms, or the fulcra of their 
judgments, which direct special results, de- 
pendent on the knowledge and caprice of the 
animal ; — two, a confounding of the simple 
fact, that an event which has happened neces- 
sarily but in one way, with a supposed possi- 
bility that it might, at the same time, have 
happened also in some other way, or have 
been two or more events instead of one ; — and 
three, that all the causes exist for the sake of a 
remote result, instead of a result being a sim- 



NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 165 

pie and indifferent consequence of the causes 
which themselves cease to be a chain the 
moment they are directed and operated upon 
by variable animal judgments, which are new 
centres of power derived from the cross 
action, so to speak, of other diverse powers. 

LXXVIII. 

Remember that judgment is the only crite- 
rion of truth ; hence men, who exercise their 
judging part, are esteemed wise ; and those, 
who do not do so, are properly accounted 
fools : the two classes, in regard to the use of 
the brain, are exactly what industrious and 
idle men are in regard to the use of the limbs 
and body; and, in general, there is an accord- 
ance between the internal and external 
phenomena. 

LXXIX. 

Remember that, as men cannot always be 
forming judgments, more than they can always 
while awake be industriously employed, so 
brains, the most employed in judging, have 
their idle times, and hence the wisest men 
have what are called their weak sides, and 
avenues through them open to vice, and to the 



166 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

seductions of superstition and folly, which 
tempt them, and all men, in so many attrac* 
tive and delusive forms. 

LXXX. 

Remember that the organs of the brain seem 
to be divisible into those of perception, and 
those of reminiscence, both being connected 
with judgment or with the faculty of reason- 
ing, from one fact to another, and possessed in 
different degrees by men, and in some degree 
by all animals, as is evident from their 
progressive improvement, and the cunning of 
experience. 

LXXXI. 

Remember that the brain when not at rest, 
or asleep, is in continued action like the body ; 
and hence, when not called into special action, 
has its loose, wild, or rambling excitements ; 
and these constitute, in their phenomena, what 
is called the fancy, the involuntary, dreaming, 
and poetical powers. 

LXXXII. 

Remember that the preponderance of these 
separate modes of brain-action constitutes all 






NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 167 

the differences of individuals ; that in some> 
the judgment is constantly exerted, and in 
others seldom ; but, as the brain is, notwith- 
standing, in action while aw T ake, so the cha- 
racteristic results of the latter are, levity of 
conduct, wildness of imagination, and easy 
credulity unopposed by energy of judgment. 

lxxxiii. 

Remember that it is indifferent how the 
powers of animal judgments were originated, 
whether as powers per se, or as powers gene- 
rated by previous actions and re-actions, parts 
of eternal motions ; it being sufficient to this 
point, that the powers thus concentrated have 
individual varieties, and are capable of newly 
directing those eternal motions of which 
passive and uneducated matter is the mere 
patient. In truth, the animal senses confer on 
them powers of choice, or they would be 
utterly useless ; and this simple choice, much 
exercised, becomes judgment, which judg- 
ment directs external things, and decides the 
fortune of the animal, right or wrong, accord- 
ing to its varied experience, discipline, and 
knowledge. The will is governed by the 
judgment; but the judgment itself is variable, 



168 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

and dependent on degrees of knowledge, from 
up to infinity, and therefore not necessary. 
Hence man is free in a world of inanimate 
physical necessity. 

LXXXIV. 

Remember that all prophecy is but a balance 
of probabilities depending on the experience, 
reasoning, and foresight, of the individual ; 
and, when otherwise, unless corroborated by 
alleged miraculous powers, is imposture^ 
fanaticism, or madness; and that all the 
various means of foretelling events, by which 
men have deluded themselves and others by a 
believed connexion of variable systems of 
bodies with future events, have been rendered 
plausible by the unsuspected fact, that there 
is an arithmetical chance that any number of 
probable events, any how indicated, will 
necessarily come to pass; and, as prophecies 
depend merely on this general principle, so 
there is not any necessary connexion between 
the indices and the events ; consequently, it 
does not signify whether the indices are 
planets or cards, the cackling or the entrails of 
birds, the sediments of tea-cups or marbles 
knocked against a wall, the dreams of imper- 



NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 169 

feet sleep, or the lines of the hand and 
forehead. 

LXXXV. 

Remember that the new philosophy does 
not affect to explain every thing, nor that its 
explications are always perfect; it merely 
asserts the general principle, that the universal 
material cause is always matter in motion; 
and then it applies this principle to details, in 
which it may be sometimes right, or sometimes 
wrong: but these errors in the application do 
not affect the fundamental principle, nor jus- 
tify theories founded on other and erroneous 
general principles, a sophism often used by 
the feeble and captious advocates of the anti- 
quated and obsolete theories. 

LXXXVI. 

Remember that the new philosophy opposes 
the two-fold motion of the earth, as the true 
cause of the fall of all its parts towards the 
centre of motion, to the unexplained doctrine 
of terrestrial attraction ; that it opposes the 
law of propagated force, through a fluid or 
gaseous medium, to the law of assumed 

vol. i. i 



170 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

V 

universal gravitation ; that it opposes the 
effect of action and re-action to the joint 
actions of the assumed gravitation, and the 
assumed projectile force; that it opposes the 
universal existence of gas, in the celestial 
spaces, to the alleged vacuum ; that it 
opposes the motions of atoms to the alleged 
existence of a principle of heat, called caloric ; 
that it opposes the motions of atoms to the 
alleged principle of chemical action; that it 
opposes the disturbance of the harmonious or 
natural relations of atoms, to the existence of 
fluids per se, as those of electricity, &c. &c. ; 
that it opposes the proximate mechanical 
causes of every variety of union, or separation 
of bodies or atoms, to the assumed action of 
any powers of attraction, repulsion, <&c. ; that it 
opposes the regular and harmonious rotations 
of atoms of gases to their alleged repulsions; 
that it opposes the imparting of their motions 
to the doctrine of the parting with caloric ; 
that it opposes the appropriation of their 
motions by respiration to the multifarious 
doctrines about animal heat and the energy 
of life; and, in fine, that it opposes some 
matter in some motion to all the special 
names of causes, invented to cover igno- 

2 



NATURE AND PHILOSOPHY. 171 

; ranee, while they deceive the superficial, and 
J serve to mystify and perplex enquiry. 

LXXXVJI. 

Remember all these propositions ; weigh, 
i examine, extend, and apply them, and they 
! will serve as antidotes to the antiquated super- 
stitions, gratuitous assumptions, absurd mysti- 
fications, and dogmatical assertions, relative 
to powers per se, qualities per se, and fluids 
sui generis, with which books of all kinds are 
encumbered, by which knowledge is dis- 
graced, and the discriminating powers of the 
human intellect insulted and debased. 



GOLDEN RULES FOR ELECTORS. 



i. 

By the spirit of the British constitution, the 
House of Commons is designed to represent 
the people, express their voice, and support 
their interests, in making laws, in controlino* 
ministers, and in levying taxes : consequently, 
its members ought to be freely and fairly 
elected, and to be independent of the other 
estates of parliament, of the king's ministers, 
and of the produce of the taxes ; or they cease, 
for their important constitutional purposes, to 
be genuine representatives of the people. 

ir. 

The property, liberty, happiness, and life, 
of every one of the British people, depending 
essentially and substantially on the incorrupti- 
bility, independence, and public spirit, of their 
representatives, — every elector is bound toscru- 



ELECTORS. 173 

tinize the character and pretensions of all 
I persons who offer themselves as delegates, to 
express his voice, and support his interests, in 
the parliament of the nation. 

hi. 
As guardians of the public purse, it is evi- 
dent that members of the House of Commons 
should possess at least the ordinary qualifica- 
tions of upright stewards, and should not ap- 
propriate to their own benefit those national 
resources with the control of which they are 
entrusted ; nor in any manner identify them- 
selves with the servants of the state, whose 
expenditure and measures they are appointed 
to examine and restrain. 

IV. 

As guardians of the rights of the people 
against encroachments of the prerogatives of 
the crown and the privileges of the nobility, 
and as conservators of public liberty, it is 
evident that members of the House of Com- 
mons should not consist either of servants of 
the crown, or of mere dependents of the 
nobility. 



374 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 



As controllers of the political measures of 
the state, it is evident, that the members of 
the House of Commons ought to possess 
unquestionable integrity and undaunted public 
spirit; and, as co-legislators, ought to be men 
of liberal education, mature age, and practical 
experience. 

VI. 

Of course it depends, in all cases, on the in- 
dependence, intelligence, and energy, of elec- 
tors, whoever they may be, whether the persons 
whom they choose to represent them are 
worthy or unworthy, are competent or incom- 
petent, or are traitors or friends to the rights, 
privileges, and interests, of the people. 

* # * That freeholders, burgesses, and householders, 
according as the right of election exists, may not have 
their right nullified by improper persons, it should be 
understood that the following classes of persons are dis- 
qualified from voting, viz. minors, aliens born, persons 
deaf, dumb, and blind, idiots and lunatics, peers, papists, 
outlaws, convicted felons, persons convicted of bribery, 
perjury, or subornation, persons receiving alms, custom- 
house and excise officers, distributors of stamps, certain 
collectors of taxes, and persons connected with the Post- 
office. 



ELECTORS. 1 75 



VII. 



It should never be lost sight of by the 
electors, and by the connexions of electors, 
that, at the hustings, every elector takes, or is 
required by law to take, the following solemn 
oath: — I swear that I have not received, or 
had, by myself or any person ivhatsoever for 
me, or for my use or benefit, directly or indi- 
rectly, any sum or sums of money, office, place, 
or employment, gift, or reward, or any pro- 
mise or security for any money, office, employ- 
ment, or gift, in order to give my vote at this 
election;" — a form of words which will check 
all who respect the obligations of religion, and 
fear the penalties of perjury, and which there- 
fore ought, on no pretence, to be dispensed 
with at any election. 

VIII. 

But, if the perpetration of the crime of per- 
jury serve as no check on the conscience of an 
unprincipled elector, it should be known, that 
to give, to offer, or to accept, any bribe, or the 
promise of any bribe, in any direct or indirect 
manner, is held by law to be a crime which 
subjects the convicted party to infamous disa- 



/ 



176 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

bilities, and renders him liable to heavy fines 
and imprisonments. 

*„* In the year 1819, Sir Manasseh Lopez, for 
bribery, through his agent at Grampound, was sentenced 
to twenty-one months' imprisonment in Exeter gaol, and 
to pay a fine of 10,000/. ; and in the same term, Henry 
Swann, esq. for bribery at Penrhyn, was sentenced to 
twelve months' imprisonment in the King's bench, and to 
pay a fine of 1000/. In 1804, Messrs. Davison, Parsons, 
and Hopping, were convicted of bribery at Ilchester, and 
sentenced to twelve months' imprisonment in the King's- 
bench. Hundreds of similar instances of this crime, and 
its punishment, might be adduced ; but the notice of 
these cases may have the salutary effect desired. 



IX. 

In like manner, any threat or intimidation, 
^vith a view to influence an elector in the con- 
scientious discharge of his duty, is held in law 
to be equivalent in criminality to an actual 
bribe; and the infliction of an injury on an 
elector, in resentment of his conscientious 
vote, vitiates the return, and is punishable by 
law as a high crime and misdemeanour. 

%• Thus any act of a candidate, tending unduly to 
influence a return, subjects the party, by 43 Geo. III. 
c. 18. to the penalty of 1000/. ; and the elector submit- 
ting to such influence is liable to a penalty of 500/., to be 
recovered by any person who shall sue for the same, 



ELECTORS. 177 

besides rendering the party giving or receiving, or know- 
ing of any such gift or promise, incapable of sitting in 
that parliament; and rendering the party who may have 
received any office or employment, incapable of holding 
! the same. 

x - 
As the liberties of the people, and the pros- 
perity of the nation, depend so intimately on 
the integrity and independence of electors, a 
corrupt or parasite vote is by consequence an 
act of social treason to the country, and a 
crime against every citizen, which it is the 
duty of all to expose and endeavour to punish. 

XI. 

To inform becomes meritorious when such 
great public interests are in danger of being 
compromised ; and the public-spirited citizen, 
who is the means of exposing and punishing 
bribery at an election, is therefore well entitled 
to receive the legal penalty of five hundred 
pounds, and also the thanks of his co electors 
and country. 

XII. 

Those electors who sell their votes for 
money, or barter them for any private benefit; 
or who permit a candidate to defray heavy 
incidental expences during his election, must 

12 



1T8 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

expect to repay in taxes the price of their cor- 
ruption, neglect, or venality. Having been 
bought, or having suffered their representative 
to involve himself in heavy costs, they must 
expect to be re-sold with a profit, and that he 
will in some manner indemnify himself; for no 
wise man would expend his private fortune in 
procuring a return to parliament, but with an 
intention of repaying himself by court favours, 
by patronage, or other sinister advantages. 

XIII. 

It is the duty of public-spirited electors to 
enter into subscriptions for the purpose of 
defraying the incidental expences of conveying 
electors to the poll, printing advertisements, 
&c. ; and unless they would borrow on worse 
terms than spendthrifts borrow of usurers, they 
w 7 ill never permit a candidate to involve him- 
self in expences which he would be justified in 
taking from the public treasury. In truth, a 
candidate who is forward in lavishing his pri- 
vate fortune for the onerous duty of serving 
his constituents in the House of Commons, 
may always be reasonably suspected of covert 
designs. The only security is, to return men 
of known probity, free of expence. 



ELECTORS. 179 

XIV. 

Corrupt electors in returning unprincipled 
members not only injure themselves, but 
become the means by which knaves are 
enabled to deprive their fellow- subjects of 
their property, their happiness, and their 
liberties ; the men, therefore, who sell or barter 
their votes at an election for their proportionate 
share of the 8000/. which is said to be the 
market price of two seats, are public scoun- 
drels, and ought to be held more infamous 
than culprits guilty of any species of private 
felony. 

xv. 

The power of excluding all improper and 
equivocal characters from parliament being in 
the hands of electors, a due respect to their 
own honour, integrity, and wisdom, ought to 
prompt every separate body of them to be 
careful that they^are represented in the great 
council of the nation by men who will not 
disgrace their choice, or render nugatory the 
virtuous exertions of other representatives. 

XVI. 

Every elector before he votes should examine 
himself in the following points : — Whether he 



180 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

entertains a disinterested and dispassionate 
belief that his favourite candidate is the most 
deserving of the candidates ? Whether he 
has no other motive for his preference than 
such conviction? Whether he has no lurking 
self-interest which he purposes to serve? 
And whether his vote is given as uprightly 
and scrupulously as that of the candidate 
ought to be, while performing his duties in 
parliament: for such as are the represented, 
such is likely to be the representative. 

XVII. 

An honest elector will have no reason to 
doubt in his choice, if the candidate having 
already sat in parliament has rendered known 
benefits to the community, — if he has opposed 
wars entered into for sinister purposes, or to 
gratify bad passions, — if he has steadily up- 
held the rights and liberties of the people, — if 
he has supported justice in transactions with 
foreign nations, — if he has resisted oppressive 
taxes, — if he has voted for the reform of noto- 
rious abuses, — and if he has assisted in 
impeaching mal-administration wherever it 
may have appeared to exist. 



ELECTORS. 181 

XVIIT. 

Public principle, and an accurate discrimi- 
nation in regard to the merits of public pre- 
tensions of the candidate, ought to direct everv 
voter ; and every departure from principle on 
the part of any one elector, resulting either 
from undue influence, personal partiality, or 
the cajolery of the candidates or their friends, 
is highly dangerous to the cause which an 
honest elector hopes to see successful. 

XIX. 

No sensible elector, who desires to be con - 
sidered as a man of integrity and principle, 
will on any account compromise his just 
cause by splitting his vote with an opponent ; a 
conduct which, under the most favourable cir- 
cumstances, neutralizes or nullifies his voice, 
and often, owing to the management of the 
election, gives a numerical majority of votes 
over a real majority of honest electors. 

%* For example, if there are two thousand honest 
| electors, and only two hundred corrupt ones, and the 
[ former should be so weak or inconsiderate as to split 
their votes with an unworthy party, they will thereby 
I place that party at the head of the poll, by adding their 
j 2000 to his 200, and become thereby the means of 
| defeating themselves. 



182 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

XX. 

Any elector who splits his votes with an ad- 
verse faction, ought by his own friends to be 
treated as a felo-de-se, for he thereby not 
merely commits suicide on his own political 
existence, but superadds the criminal respon- 
sibility of aiding the other party against his 
own friends. If he do this without considera- 
tion, he ought to be held up to public scorn as 
a fool ; but, if he persist after warning, then 
he ought to be treated as a knave, and as a 
traitor to his cause. 

XXI. 

The cardinal rule is to vote on principle. 
If there is only one worthy candidate, give 
him a plumper ; and, if two, vote for both. 
But do not let any elector, under the silly, 
weak, or crafty, pretence of using all his votes, 
give one for each party, such conduct being 
the sure means of nullifying his own interest, 
while it often leads to the ascendancy of a 
well-trained band of corrupt electors. 

%* It would be a great improvement in the system of 
elections, if every body of electors chose but one candi- 
date. In that case they could not be played off against 
each other as they now are, by being cajoled out of their 
spare vote for unworthy candidates. In the city of Lon- 



ELECTORS. 183 

i 

| don every elector has four votes, and hence the absur- 
i dity of the results of contests among the best-informed 
: body of electors in the empire. Every liveryman thinks 
1 he best uses his power by splitting- his votes among the 
! candidates; hence it often happens that the most puny- 
minded or unprincipled candidates are returned to 
parliament, in preference to men of eminent virtue and 
talents. The independent livery of London give perhaps 
two votes on principle, and then nullify these by splitting 
their two other votes with stupid or plausible candidates 
in an adverse interest. 

XXII. 

Every honest elector should withhold his 
support from a late member, if his voice has 
never been heard in Parliament in defence of 
any popular interest, of public justice, or of 
public liberty; if his silent votes have served 
only to swell ministerial majorities; and if his 
present recommendations are his influence 
with the minister, his official employments, or 
his improving fortunes at court : under such 
circumstances, the candidate should be consi- 
dered as a wolf in sheep's clothing, and as 
wholly unfit to represent honest electors in 
their house of parliament. 

XXIII. 

It should be considered by electors, that 
lawyers are generally unfit from their views of 



184 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

professional interest to be entrusted with the 
powers of representatives ; that as servants and 
administrators of the laws, they are, as law- 
makers, prejudiced and interested; and that, 
as they are accustomed to plead in any cause 
for hire, so they frequently become pliable 
instruments of the minister, and greatly aug- 
ment the mischiefs of corruption, by their 
ready sophistry and assiduous application. 

XXIV. 

Contractors, speculators, and money-jobbers, 
whose god is gold, are always incapable of 
serving their country in Parliament, their sole 
object being to sell themselves to the minister 
for any profitable job or bargain. 

xxv. 

Young men who are devoid of experience, 
and too commonly the slaves of their passions, 
(however wealthy, however showy their ta- 
lents, or however powerfully connected,) are 
unfit to perform the onerous duties of Legis- 
lators, and ought seldom to be supported by 
discreet and patriotic electors, in preference 
to unexceptionable candidates of greater ex- 
perience. 



ELECTORS. 185 

XXVI. 

The profligate in private life, and the des- 
perate in pecuniary circumstances, are as 
unable as they are unlikely, to resist the 
overtures of any ambitious faction in Parlia- 
ment, or the insidious and overwhelming cor- 
ruption of the ministers of the Crown, and 
ought therefore never to be entrusted with 
the representative functions. 

XXVII. 

Solemn orders of the House of Commons 
declare it to be u a high infringement of the 
liberties and privileges of the Commons, for 
any lord of Parliament, or lord lieutenant 
of any county, to concern himself in the 
election of members of Parliament; while 
on the part of electors, except in extraor- 
dinary instances of unequivocal patriotism, 
it is an act of political suicide to return the 
palpable dependent of any Peer of Parliament, 
or to elect the heirs of noble houses, thereby 
converting the House of Commons into a mere 
seminary of education for the junior nobility. 

xxvui. 
Those candidates whom independent elec- 
tors are bound to put in nomination, and to 



186 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

return free of expence, are tried men, whose 
principles have resisted, in former parlia- 
ments, the temptations of power ; or worthy 
and independent neighbours, whether land- 
proprietors, merchants, bankers, or manufac- 
turers, whose liberal principles, public spirit, 
and political independence, are known to the 
electors ; and, other circumstances being alike, 
a candidate whose talents and energies have 
raised him to distinction, ought to be preferred 
to a wealthy heir, who, seldom having had 
occasion to think for himself, is incapable of 
thinking with advantage for the public. 

XXIX. 

As it is one of the most valuable privileges 
of Britons, to exercise their elective franchises 
at the return of every new Parliament, or as 
often as any vacancy occurs, it is the duty of 
all intelligent electors, to resent every attempt 
to deprive them of their power of choosing, 
by base compromises under the crafty uncon- 
stitutional pretext of preserving the peace of 
the place. Every new candidate, therefore, 
who affords electors an opportunity of exer- 
cising their constitutional rights, ought to 
have his pretensions viewed with favour, and 



ELECTORS* 187 

to be preferred to any other candidate, who, 
by compromising with an adverse interest, has 
sought to nullify the rights of the electors. 

xxx. 

No dependent of the crown or the minister, 
whatever be his general reputation, ought to 
| be considered by independent electors, as 
entitled to their preference over less equivocal 
candidates ; and all bodies of electors should 
be on their guard against appeals to their 
feelings and interests, made by successful 
military and naval commanders, by specious 
lawyers, wealthy contractors, or powerful 
placemen, none of whom ought to be suffered 
to enjoy the opportunity of bartering their 
votes in parliament, in exchange for their 
personal aggrandizement or pecuniary ad- 
vantage. 



* * 
* 



And as certain persons are by the constitution 
considered ineligible to sit in Parliament, so other per- 
sons dependent on the Crown, are considered culpable 
in interfering with the duties of Electors. Thus persons 
connected with the Excise and the Post-office are for- 
bidden, in any manner whatsoever, to interfere in any 
election, under penalty of 100Z. and incapacity to con- 
tinue in office ; and it is declared highly criminal for any 
servant of the crown to use the powers of his office to 



188 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

influence any elector in giving his vote ; and with the 
same jealous feeling, soldiers must be removed to a dis- 
tance of two or three miles from the place of election, 
under penalty on the Secretary at War. 

XXXI. 

In regard to placemen, pensioners, and 
dependents of the crown, generally, it should 
never be forgotten, that the solemn compact 
between the reigning dynasty and the nation 
has provided in express terms, " That no 
person who has an office, or* place of profit 
tinder the King, or who receives a pension 
from the Crown, shall be capable of serving 
as a Member of the House of Commons;" and 
although this bulwark of liberty has been 
dispensed with by the forms of a subsequent 
act of parliament, and re-election is now 
considered by the House of Commons as a 
means of qualifying the disqualified, yet it 
should be understood that no law can compel 
the people themselves to violate the Constitu- 
tion ; consequently the re-election of Place- 
men lies entirely in their own discretion, an J 
they are still, in this important point, the 
uncontrolled and competent guardians of their 
own rights. 



GOLDEN RULES FOR DISCRIMINATING 
TRUTH IN HUMAN ENQUIRIES. 



i. 

It is not difficult to analyse the causes of the 
ascendency of error among societies of men ; 
but to expose errors is dangerous, because, 
being engendered by deep-rooted prejudices 
of education, and forstered by self-interest, 
they are maintained by active and vindictive 
passions. An experienced philosopher ex- 
pressed his apprehension of those passions 
and prejudices when he declared, that, if his 
hand were full of Truths, he would not open 
j it ! Such an imperfect being is man — that 
truth must always be exhibited in a way 
| calculated to humour, and not to oppose, his 
j prejudices, — or those who are hardy enough 
to maintain it, must run the chance of being 
sacrificed to their temerity. 



190 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

II. 

" Are there in Sodom five righteous men 1 — 
Are there in Israel fifty who are worthy to be 
saved?" — Lives there in Britain one in twelve 
whom it is useful to address in the language 
of truth? — In other words, can a votary of 
truth, with no other protection than the 
native fascinations of the goddess, make an 
appeal, at present, to many tribunals in Eng- 
land, and escape vindictive accusations of 
ignorance, or prejudice? 

in. 

Are there, at this day, to be found in Eng- 
land, among twelve men indifferently taken, 
more than one or two who will uphold Truth 
against the blandishments of sophistry, false- 
hood, and corruption? In fine, are not many 
great truths as obnoxious, at this day in 
England, as truth ever was in any country in 
the world? — Might not any obstinate stickler 
for truth meet with martyrdom in England, 
as certainly as did the prophets and Jesus 
Christ among the jews, as the apostles among 
the gentiles, or as the great protestant reform- 
ers in catholic Christendom? 



TRUTH IN HUMAN ENQUIRIES. 191 

IV. 

The imperfect power of human reason, and 
the pressure of physical wants, deprive sa- 
vages, and those who pursue the manual occu- 
pations in civilized society, of the opportunity 
and habit of examining the true relations of 
effects, and their connexions and causes. 
Savages are employed only in providing for 
their wants, and for the indulgence of their 
passions ; and any speculations on nature, 
or on cause and effect, are to them but 
occasional scintillations; and, being unre- 
corded, they are, when expressed, incapable 
of being examined, though in due time these 
crude notions grow up in the improving 
community as standard knowledge. 

v. 
Education and improvement may afterwards 
emancipate a few individuals from rude and 
imperfect notions ; but, as those notions are 
fitted for such minds as those who first in- 
vented them ; and, as generations run into one 
another, and are dovetailed together, so the 
first crude notions of their savage stage per- 
vade all civilized nations in spite of the 
knowledge and truth attained by many indi- 
viduals. 



192 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

VI. 

The errors of inbred prejudices, generated 
in the savage state, and perpetuated among 
the labouring and non-intellectual classes 
through subsequent ages, are played upon by 
craft, and turned to their own advantages by 
classes who contrive to subsist on them, or 
make them the instruments of their ambition 
and assumed authority. Craft and power 
become therefore closely allied with the mus- 
cular strength of a country against truth and 
intellectual originality. 

VII. 

The radical errors of savages consist in 
mistaking causes, — in considering dreams as 
inspirations, — in considering medicines as 
charms, and charms as medicines, — in consi- 
dering their personal good as the special act 
of some kind genius, and their personal evils 
as the act of some malevolent genius ; in yield- 
ing their judgments to such hasty faith ; and id 
implanting such faith in their children ; till by 
accumulation and acceleration the whole be- 
comes a system, and an integral part of the 
minds of themselves and their successors. 



TRUTH, 



193 



VIII. - 

These errors do not consist of one prac- 
tice more than another: as whether a reptile is 
adored as the fetisch of a nation ; or a mon- 
strous idol as its protector; or an unsculptured 
god clothed with human sentiments, ca- 
prices, and passions ; or whether stars, or gods 
and goddesses, or luck and ill-luck, or fate and 
destiny, or charms and miracles, or incanta- 
tions and invocations ; or whether attraction, 
repulsion, universal gravitation, or chemical 
action, govern the world : the principle of 
erroneous superstition is the same whenever a 
cause of a material effect is assumed which is 
not material, connected, commensurate, and 
mechanical. 

IX. 

A dream has no mechanical connexion with 
the things of which it is the alleged sign, — a 
charm has no mechanical connexion with the 
things over which it is assumed to have power, 
— two bodies said to attract or repel one 
another, have no mutual force in the directions 
in which it is pretended they act. African 
fetisches, or oriental idols, have no mechanical 
connexion with the things which they are 

VOL. I. K 



194 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

said to influence, — witchery or enchant- 
ment, the planets, the entrails of animals, sa- 
cred omens, chemical action, and sediments of 
tea-cups, have no mechanical energy, or com- 
mensurate connexion with their pretended 
effects, — and, therefore, are superstitious ab- 
surdities, whether they bear the stamp of sci- 
ence, religion, philosophy, or antiquity. 

x. 

We may not know, and we may never 
know, all that is true, and all that we may 
desire to know, because our knowledge is 
limited by our local position, our senses, and 
the instruments for improving them ; but we 
possess clear tests in regard to what is not true, 
by knowing that all force or power is matter in 
velocity, and that no power can apply which 
is not in continuity with the effect, and in the 
same direction ; and we become acquainted 
with an eternal and immutable relation of 
power, in knowing that action and re-action 
are always equal : these, therefore, are the 
indubitable and universal tests of all super- 
stitions. 

XI. 

The crafts which profit by superstition 
have secured themselves in all countries by a 



TRUTH. 195 

close alliance with power ; but they contrive 
also to ally themselves with nominal wisdom 
and philosophy, and these have been perverted 
in aid of their enemies. For many ages an 
open war subsisted, and philosophers were 
exiled, persecuted, and put to death; but, as 
truth is nurtured by the blood of martyrs, so 
at length it was found more easy to ally pre- 
tended philosophers and philosophy with 
superstition ; and mankind and truth have now 
to contend, in consequence, with a triple- 
headed monster in superstition, power, and 
pseudo-philosophy. 

XII. 

Self-interest shifts the question, and it is 
pretended that truth and morals could not 
subsist together, — that falsehood is necessary 
to morals,— that the fears of supposed good 
and evil genii are more operative than the 
social rewards of virtue, and the legal punish- 
ment of crimes : and, by the force of such 
sophisms, benevolence makes enquiry slum- 
ber, and truth becomes a barren speculation. 

XIII. 

A fair experiment never has been made, 
and perhaps never can be made, of a people 

1 



196 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

existing without the influence of superstition. 
Rewards of virtue can never, perhaps, be 
fairly bestowed, in a world governed by 
human passions, by envy and intrigue ; and 
codes of laws can never, perhaps, be con- 
trived, which shall discriminate shades of 
crime, and reach even the consciences of 
men. Superstition may therefore be useful, 
and be wisely tolerated ; but, at the same 
time, truth is truth, and ought never to be 
abashed or persecuted by policy founded on 
convenience, though it ought to be always set 
forth with prudence and modesty. 

XIV. 

Prejudices and errors are maintained by 

THE CRAFT OF AUTHORSHIP AND BOOKMAKING ; 

for, as prejudices and errors are felt and che- 
rished by the multitude, so those books which 
flatter and sustain them always find the great- 
est number of purchasers, and yield the great- 
est profit. A sordid calculation leads, there- 
fore, to the production of one thousand books 
in support of prejudices for one which opposes 
them ; while, as the sale of the former is also 
ten times greater than the latter, so, from this 
cause alone, the odds are always ten thou- 
sand to one against the progress of truth. 



TRUTH. 197 

XV. 

Close corporations always favour errors 
and prejudices, because these infect the ma- 
jority whom every member flatters; and be- 
cause the majority will never admit a new 
member who has not qualified himself by the 
unction of flattery, and displayed a complying' 
spirit of subordination and servility. 

XVI. 

Institutions and endowments are neces- 
sarily adverse to all improvement, because 
they are formed on a standard of faith and 
practice fixed by the statutes, or if not so 
fixed, their faith and practice are maintained 
by the mutual reserves of the members, by 
affectations of attachment to established opi- 
nions, or by the fears which every individual 
feels in regard to the prejudices of his superiors 
and colleagues. 

XVII. 

The force of education and habit opposes 
almost insuperable barriers to the progress of 
truth. They are equivalent in man to what 
his vanity calls the instincts of animals. They 
are, in fact, the instincts of man as displayed 



198 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

in his various religions, customs, languages, 
and pursuits in different nations. They mul- 
tiply the chances against truth another ten 
thousand times; and, indeed, all reasoning is 
so subservient to them, that there are very 
few truths dependent on reason, in which all 
nations are agreed. 

XVxII. 

Taking then the obstacles of close corpora- 
tions and institutions as opposing a hundred 
chances against truth, the sum of all the 
chances are 10,000 x 10,000 x 100, 
against the recognition of any truth dependent 
on the free exertion of human reason, or ten 

THOUSAND MILLIONS to One ! 
XIX. 

Granting that mankind progressively im- 
prove, and numbering the human race at one 
thousand millions, there seems no chance that 
any additional truth will be established oftener 
than once in ten generations, or in 300 
years. On these data we might, if we could 
agree on the number of general truths which 
human reason has established, determine the 
age of the world ; but, if we adopt the received 



TRUTH. 199 

chronology, and take the human race to be 
6000 years old, we shall find that mankind 
have not yet determined more than twenty 
truths ! Many will think even this number 
an exaggeration, while others will consider it 
a libel on humanity. It would be pleasant to 
see the two parties in the field, and to obtain, 
by examination and comparison, a correct list 
of the whole, on which they agree, whether 
twenty, or more, or less ! 

xx. 

All doctrines of causation are absurd and 
superstitious, when there is no possible or 
mechanical connexion between the cause 
assumed and the effect produced ; for our 
perceptions take cognizance only of matter, 
and its actions and re-actions, always subject 
to mechanical laws. 

XXI. 

Thus it is absurd and superstitious to 
assert, that a rod or wand can, by its touch, 
transform one substance into another, because 
there is no operation on the substance by 
such means by which it can be so converted. 



200 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

XXII. 

It is absurd and superstitious to say, that 
any one prophesied a future event as an act of 
positive foreknowledge independent of the 
law of probabilities founded on experience, 
because there is no connexion between the 
mind of the prophesier and the events. 

XXIII. 

It is absurd and superstitious to allege 
that there are lucky seats in gaming, because 
there is no connexion between the seats and 
the accidents of the cards or dice. 

XXIV. 

It is absurd and superstitious to ascribe the 
power of foretelling to dreams, or planets, or 
sediments of tea-cups, or entrails of animals ; 
because there is no connexion between the 
the same and the events with which they are 
said to be coincident. 

xxv. 
It is absurd and superstitious to say, that 
one body attracts another ; for, in that case, 
the body attracting must push the body 



TRUTH. 201 

attracted on the opposite side, where it is not 
present corporally, much less potentially. 

XXVI. 

It is absurd and superstitious to ascribe 
cures to touching, or diseases to witchcraft, 
because the substance in neither case is 
changed by the touch of the healer or the 
witch. 

XXVII. 

It is absurd and superstitious to say, that 
two bodies repel one another, because, at the 
time, the force or motion of each is directed 
oppositely to that in which the propelling 
force is required. But, whenever any of these 
circumstances are matters of fact, the causes 
are not of the absurd and superstitious kind 
assumed, but may, and ought to be, sought in 
competent proximate operations, which accord 
with the laws of arithmetic, motion, and 
mechanics, and which it is the business of 
reason and philosophy to examine and 
explain. 

XXVIII. 

It is absurd and superstitious to believe in 
the appearance or noises of ghosts and pre- 

k2 



202 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

tended spirits of the dead; for nothing but 
what is material can be an object of sense, 
or can act so as to affect light or sound ; all 
such appearances, as matter of fact, must there- 
fore be referred to illusions of the mind, or to 
disordered or mistaken affections of the sense, 
assisted by implicit faith in the possibility of 
the phantom. 

XXIX. 

It is absurd and superstitious to attach any 
hick or ill-luck to days of the month, for days 
are but similar revolutions of the earth in cir- 
cles of space, which never return to the same 
point, and which are perfectly indifferent to 
actions of men, and the contingency of their 
unconnected fortunes. 

XXX. 

It is absurd and superstitious to consider 
events unconnected, as signs or omens of each 
other's occurring, or considering events as 
governed by any coincidences with other 
events, when there is no mechanical con- 
nexion, as cause and effect, and often no con- 
nexion, either in kind or species. 



TRUTH. 203 

XXXI. 

It is absurd and superstitious to ascribe to 
atoms any identical sympathy, or affinity for 
each other, except with reference to their 
fitting forms, or some external and distant 
action on them mechanically calculated to 
produce the effect 

XXXII. 

It is absurd and superstitious to conceive 
that there is a predetermined fate and neces- 
sity in the events of animal life — for all events 
are consequences of causes, and must, there- 
fore, follow the causes, not go before them, 
which is implied by fate and necessity ; while 
the causes themselves of events in animal 
life are choosing in subservience to the senses, 
whose sole purpose it is to confer the power 
of choice, and raise the animal above a phy- 
sical patient; or the judging from knowledge 
and experience, always variable, often erring, 
and never certain, and the consequence can- 
not, therefore, be more certain than the cause. 
The only fate or necessity, relative to animal 
life, consists in this: that something will 
happen as a consequence of every train of 
operative causes ; but the species and variety 



204 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

of that something is not predetermined, but 
a result of the intervening choice of sense 
and varying judgment. 

XXXIII. 

England, with almost the single exception 
of the United States of America, is the freest 
and most enlightened country in the world ! 
In England there yet remains some scope for 
truth ! In an unrestrained press, she has 
here a stage on which to play a part; and 
she is not wholly fettered, banished, or stran- 
gled, as in many countries. Truth may still, 
therefore, solicit votaries in these islands, pro- 
vided she deport herself with prudence and 
modesty ! 

xxxiv. 

Truth, without adulation, admits that the 
English are a great people ; but declares that 
they have risen to greatness by means of com- 
merce, like the Tyrians, the Carthaginians, 
the Venetians, the Genoese, and the Dutch ; 
that those nations have fallen one after an- 
other, and that the English are in danger of 
falling also, from the operation of similar 
causes. 



TRUTH. 205 

XXXV. 

Truth tells us that all those fallen people 
were corrupted by the influx of foreign wealth ; 
were intoxicated by foreign power; and were, 
finally, ambitious of universal dominion. 

XXXVI. 

Truth informs us that their wealth enabled 
them to intrigue in the councils of foreign 
princes; that they sought to direct the go- 
vernments of the whole world ; and that they 
were constantly meddling in the quarrels of 
their neighbours. 

XXXVII. 

Truth declares that, to serve the sinister 
purposes of their commerce, they stirred up 
wars among other nations; and considered 
that their welfare was best promoted by the 
strifes and calamities of all other people. 

XXXVIII. 

Truth tells us that, in consequence of 
their overgrown wealth, inordinate ambition, 
and jealous policy, they were first envied, 
then feared, and, finally, hated and opposed 5 
by the whole world . 

6 



206 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

XXXIX. 

Truth records that, to maintain their as- 
cendency and pretensions, it became neces- 
sary to augment their fleets and armies ; and 
to carry on wars against the nations which 
previously had been their customers, and the 
means of their aggrandisement. 

XL, 

Truth warns us that their acquired wealth 
was soon dissipated in the maintenance of 
fleets and armies in foreign countries ; that 
such drains were not re-supplied by balances 
of trade as formerly ; that credit was soon 
substituted for wealth ; that paper, or alloyed 
money, took the place of the precious metals ; 
and that the solid basis of public prosperity, 
founded on industry and balances of trade, 
gave way to temporizing projects and ar- 
tifices. 

XLI. 

Truth records that, in those countries, as 
the pride of the government increased, the 
miseries and oppressions of the people accu- 
mulated; and that, as the exigencies of the 



TRUTH. 207 

state augmented, pretexts became necessary 
for diminishing the liberties of the people. 

XLII. 

Truth tells us that, as the necessities of 
the people accumulated with the public dis- 
tresses, so individuals became more willing to 
sell themselves to the government, and to 
assist in oppressing and enslaving their inde- 
pendent and less crafty fellow citizens. 

XLIII. 

Truth records that, during the internal and 
external contentions of those people, the ener- 
I getic, industrious, and useful part of the 
j community, emigrated to exercise their ta- 
| lents and experience in foreign countries, 
I thereby transferring to them the foundation 
of their native country's greatness. 

XLIV. 

Truth illustrates that, in the climax of their 
national misfortunes, all the fences and secu- 
rities of civil liberty were destroyed one after 
another, so that public freedom, public spirit, 
public glory, private credit, public prosperity, 
and often national independence, were ex- 
tinguished together! 



208 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

XLV. 

Truth reminds us that Tyre fell a victim 
to its meddling policy, — Carthage to its ambi- 
tion, — Venice to the tyranny of its govern- 
ment,— Genoa to foreign wars, — and Holland 
to the corruptions consequent on overgrown 
wealth. 

XLVI. 

Truth admits that our geographical posi- 
tion and territorial circumstances are more 
advantageous than the territory and position 
of those people; and that the prolongation of 
our national independence rests less than 
theirs on extraneous circumstances and war- 
like atchievements. 

XL VII. 

Truth tells us, however, that all the pros- 
perity, wealth, and power, which arise from 
foreign commerce, are subject to common 
laws; and that in these respects, without in- 
creased caution and wisdom, we are doomed 
to follow the fate of other great commercial 
powers, and sink to the average rank pre- 
scribed by our territory and population. 



TRUTH. 209 

XLVIII. 

Truth proclaims, that the commerce and 
power of the British islands arise out of their 
insular security, their commanding geogra- 
phical position, their political liberty, their 
staple commodities, and the characteristic 
energy, confidence, and industry, of their inha- 
bitants, all existing antecedently to their pre- 
sent ascendency, or growing with it. 

XLIX. 

Truth declares that, as the ascendency of 
the British empire has arisen from the gra- 
dual and unpremeditated operation of natural 
and inherent causes, those efficient causes are 
adequate to sustain the ascendency which 
they have conferred, without the hazard of 
wars to assert abstract powers and commer- 
cial rights, which did not originally tend to 
raise the country to its present eminence. 



Truth instructs us, by a never-failing ex- 
perience, that wars are alien to the prosperity, 
and dangerous to the very existence, of those 
nations whose strength is founded on their 
commerce ; and that public distress is unfa- 



210 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

vourable to public spirit, and fatal to the 
energies of public liberty and private hap- 
piness. 

LI. 

Truth tells us that, without liberty, there 
is no security for person and property; and 
that, without security of person and property, 
and reciprocal confidence, the soul of commerce 
can never exist in any country. 

LII. 

Truth reminds us that, in Britain, the 
security of public liberty depends on the free 
and independent representation of the people 
in the legislature; and that the security of 
personal liberty and property depends on the 
unbiassed convention and full powers of 
juries. 

LIU. 

Truth declares that public liberty and per- 
sonal security must be lost to the people of 
England whenever any considerable part of 
the House of Commons is nominated by the 
minister of the day, and becomes identified 
with the executive government. 



TRUTH. 211 

LIV. 

Truth, then, suggests it as our duty to 
hold sacred those bulwarks of our freedom 
as the bases of your public prosperity; to 
treat as public enemies those who dare to 
impair them; and to despise, as unnatural 
sycophants of power, those who decry our 
unremitting and zealous exertions to maintain 
them. 

LV. 

Truth, in like manner, calls our attention 
to the confusion and uncertainty of our laws, 
which have beeu the growth of a thousand 
years, of bad as well as good times, and of 
ages of superstition, ignorance, and despotism, 
as well as of epochs of liberty ; and it tells 
us that our entire legal system demands a 
radical reform and regeneration. 

LVI. 

Truth teaches us, that the liberty and glory 
of a country must be utterly destroyed, if, 
after the great barriers of liberty are under- 
mined, slavery is made palatable by the cor- 
ruptions and subjugation of the public press, 
thereby reconciling the people to their chains, 



212 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

holding up truth and virtue to the scorn of 
ignorance and credulity, and hunting down 
and persecuting all the honest exertions of 
struggling patriotism. 

LVII. 

Truth likens the operations of our go- 
vernment, subject to the incumbrances of an 
enormous public debt, to those of a trader 
who has issued a large amount of accommo- 
dation bills. The progress of both is similar, 
— is attended by similar difficulties, — and, 
unless such anticipations of means are liqui- 
dated by timely sacrifices, they are, in both 
cases, likely to be followed by similar effects. 

LVIII. 

Truth calls our attention to the principle, 
that, as taxes on the people cause the people 
to indemnify themselves upon each other, so 
it is impracticable that great public debts 
can be overtaken by any fund growing out of 
taxes, because the taxes which generate the 
fund, augment the expenditure of the go- 
vernment in a higher ratio. 

LIX. 

Truth proclaims the precarious pursuit and 
dependent character of commerce in any 



TRUTH. 213 

country where the possession of currency 
depends more on intrigue, sycophancy, and 
factitious credit, than on real trade and capi- 
tal. It tells us that, in such a country, spe- 
culators overwhelm capitalists, that merchants 
become the humble tools of power, and that 
the spirit of trade and honourable enterprize 
must soon be destroyed. 

LX. 

Truth tells us that our sure means of 
defence and offence, lie in our great and in- 
vincible navy; that a mistaken policy and 
false notions of glory stimulate our ministers 
to emulate the military establishments of the 
great continental powers ; and that our con- 
dition under such policy, is that of the frog 
of Esop, attempting to swell himself to the 
size of the ox. 

LXI. 

Truth reminds us of the primary objects 
and principles of colonization ; and teaches 
us to seek no other colonies than islands 
whose dependence and produce we can se- 
cure by means of our invincible navy. 



214 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

LXII. 

Truth tells us that, as the most powerful 
of free people, we ought every where to sus- 
tain public liberty ; and, in all our alliances and 
foreign connexions, ought never to support 
despotism against the exertions of the peo- 
ple to assert or recover their civil liberties. 

LXIII. 

Truth quotes the example of all history to 
prove that, to maintain our national inde- 
pendence, it is necessary to husband our 
resources, and to consider our agriculture 
and manufactures as the primary sources of 
our public welfare and power. 

LXIV. 

Truth declares that no great nation can 
ever be conquered till its resources have been 
drained and exhausted by the long continu- 
ance of wars; and that the strength which 
results from the prosperity, confidence, 
and credit, of a state of peace, is the 
only perfect security which any country can 
acquire. 

LXV. 

Truth asserts that one country has no right 
to meddle with or disturb the government 



TRUTH. 215 

established in another ; it recognizes the 
peaceful authority of the Chinese and Japan- 
ese, to restrict and forbid intercourse with 
foreign nations; it legitimatizes the alliance 
of free states with the tyrants of Algiers and 
Morocco; and it denies the justice or ne- 
cessity of wars founded on changes of other 
governments or dynasties. 

LXVI. 

Truth solemnly declares that, if wicked and 
corrupt ministers of a free people, at any 
time, involve those people in foreign wars, 
with no justifiable object; such free people, 
so abused, are not bound to become partizans 
in the war of such ministers, which is not a 
war of the country, or for the country; on 
the contrary, they are bound to exert them- 
selves, by all constitutional means, to procure 
the speedy restoration of peace. 

LXVII. 

Truth declares it to be a great crime to 
carry on war without some assignable cause 
of sufficient magnitude, and commensurate 
with the evils of war; and that none but 
defensive wars, provoked by notorious and 



216 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

definable aggressions of the enemy, are justi- 
fiable in a moral or religious sense. 

LXVIII. 

Truth declares that her most active ene- 
mies are those traders in politics and great 
events who mislead the public, and pollute, 
by their sordid calculations, all the ordinary 
channels of her voice ; that these persons are 
the conductors of venal newspapers, a race 
of people who live upon public credulity, and 
who foster all the unhappy prejudices and 
passions of mankind ; and that there never 
was a blessing so perverted as the power of 
the press by these corrupt speculators in 
news, many of whom care not whether they 
blast and wither half the world, if they can 
procure the sale and notoriety of their 
newspapers. 

LXIX. 

Public ignorance, generating prejudices 
which are humoured by statesmen, cherished 
by the professions, and pampered by unprin- 
cipled writers and editors, is consequently 
that many-headed monster which in all ages 
has opposed itself to the progress and ascen- 



TRUTH. 217 

deney of truth. The first considerations of 
every politic statesman are, not what would 
be right — and what would be consistent with 
truth ; but, what is the most agreeable to the 
public feelings — and in what degree right con- 
duct can be reconciled with existing preju- 
dices? A public wrong is perpetrated, but 
the statesman who inflicts it excuses himself 
by referring to the public opinion and voice, 
by which he says he is governed — the priest, 
who often becomes the moral apologist of the 
statesman, consults in like manner the preju- 
dices of the public, — and the journalist, the 
echo of the public voice, in like manner con- 
sults the public wishes ! A concordant result 
is thus produced at the very moment in which 
great public errors are committed ! Calamities 
hence arise, followed by repentance and mutual 
accusations ; yet the mischief cannot be re- 
called. Thus the history of human life, 
and the transactions of nations, are com- 
posed almost entirely of catalogues of errors, 
calamities, repentance, and often of vengeance, 
for crimes which arise less from the turpitude of 
individuals than from defects in the means of 
ascertaining truth, and of acting in accordance 
with it. 



218 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

LXX. 

Judgments of men agree whenever the 
premises are certain, as in geometry and 
arithmetic, and generally in objects of sense ; 
but they disagree whenever the premises are 
uncertain, as in testimony, which depends on 
the credibility or honesty and knowledge of 
the parties ; and in fancies and assumed 
principles, which vary with the constitutions 
and purposes of men. Testimony, fancies, 
and assumed principles, are, therefore, not 
means of forming infallible judgments, and 
consequently, no certain tests of truth ; and 
only tests in the degree in which they are 
certain, or highly probable, so as to bring 
their objects within the operations of judg- 
ment. Thus every judging man laughs at 
or doubts about the fancied powers of attrac- 
tion, repulsion, gravitation, and caloric ; but 
he assents to the sensible powers of bodies in 
motion, and to the laws with which forces 
are geometrically proved to be propagated in 
gaseous and fluid media ; because the latter 
are certain, and the former are merely crea- 
tures of the imagination. Similar differences 
create all the factions in science, and sects in 
metaphysics and theology ; and the same 



TRUTH. 219 

grounds of difference must always perpe- 
tuate both the factions and the sects. 

LXXI. 

Remember that accurate judging is not 
power per se } but power acquired ; and that, as 
it arises either from the perception, or reminis- 
cence of facts, so knowledge and experience are 
essential to its perfection ; and men, in conse- 
quence, are qualified to judge only on subjects 
dd which they have acquired knowledge and 
experience, and a man may be thought de- 
servedly wise on many subjects, while he is a 
great fool on many others on which he has 
imperfect knowledge, or has not been in the 
habit of comparing facts and forming judg- 
ments. 

LXXII. 

Remember that, as minds are merely what 
they are taught, so the prejudices of education 
can scarcely ever be rooted out, and men 
cling; to them as to their identities or exist- 
encies ; hence it is that new truths never make 
effective progress in the generation which gave 
them birth ; and that, as the prejudices of one 
age mingle with the education of the succeed- 

6 



220 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

iog, more than one generation must pass away 
before new truths supersede established 
errors. 

i.xxin. 
Remember that truth is like seed planted in 
the ground, — the active powers of the circum- 
jacent gasses were previously exerted in other 
ways, and it is some time before a regular 
action and re-action takes place between the 
novel introduction and the pre established 
energies; that the germ, and its expansion, are 
still a novelty, and call for a diversion of 
power, which is slowly conceded, and depend- 
ent only on paramount force ; but if this be 
sufficient, the germ becomes a tree, and, in 
due time, scatters seed which covers the 
earth: let men, therefore, plant seeds of truth, 
not in the expectation that they will at once 
become trees, and affect the judgments of 
mankind, but in the benevolent hope that, if 
possessed of native force, they will, like all 
seed, produce fruit in the due season of their 
maturitv. 



GOLDEN RULES RELATIVE TO POLITICAL 
AND SOCIAL ECONOMY. 



The wealth of nations consists in the ac- 
cumulation and superfluity of marketable 
commodities, and in the power of producing 
them by labour and ingenuity ; the balance 
of produce over consumption, or the amount 
of exports, whether natural or artificial, being 
the means of introducing luxuries, foreign 
necessaries, and the precious metals. 

ii. 

The wealth of individuals consists in the 
appropriation of property, or of currency, as 
the representative of property. Were the 
whole population of Britain divided upon 
equal farms, with equal means, he would be 
the richest at the end of the year who, hav- 
ing had the best crops, had the most to spare 

to his less fortunate neighbours. He would 

1 



222 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

then be able to purchase their service, and 
to work less in the next year, or enjoy more 
than others. 

in. 
The wealth, and, consequently, the powers 
of a government, depend on the collection from 
individuals of so much of the common cur- 
rency, as will enable it to purchase service, 
and to combine and multiply the powers, of 
individual wealth in any required ratio. 
The same principles, extended from indivi- 
duals to states, and from nations to nations, 
constitute and create all those differences in 
human societies which are the objects of 
political and moral investigation. 

IV. 

The motives for social industry, the means 
of export, the wealth of nations, and the 
power of governments, have their basis in 
the confidence of individuals that their labour 
will enjoy its reward without disturbance; 
hence, no state can be truly wealthy and 
powerful in which security of property is not 
afforded to its subjects ; or, in other words, 
in which justice and civil liberty are not 
secured by immutable laws. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 223 

V. 

Currency may be defined the measure of 
relative value. In different countries the same 
amount of currency denominates value in the 
inverse proportion of the mass of property in 
each, and of the number of transfers in which 
it is required. It constitutes the direct wealth 
of individuals, in regard to other individuals 
in the same realm ; but it is no measure of 
the absolute wealth of different nations, or 
ages, because it is a denomination of value 
which constantly varies with the quantity 
employed or required. 

VI. 

A standard of the value of currency is 
best found in the necessaries of life. Labour 
is not a fixed standard, because its value in 
currency may be controlled by law, depreci- 
ated by competition, or advanced by skill. 
The sole object and use of currency being to 
represent and procure property, its best stand- 
ard is some commodity of the first necessity; 
and this is approximated in bread or potatoes, 
in some countries, or in oats or rice, in 
others. The wages of labour ought to be 
food, clothes, and shelter, or as much currency 
as will procure them. 



224 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

VII. 

States possessing equal extents of soil, 
equally productive, and of equal population, 
liberty, and intelligence, would be equally 
rich, though one should contain but one 
million of currency, and the other twenty 
millions. The only difference would be in 
the nominal price of labour and commodities, 
and in the circumstance, that that might be 
purchased for a shilling in one, which would 
cost twenty shillings in the other. 

VIII, 
Two such equal states might exist for ages, 
their governments possessing the same rela- 
tive means of drawing out the respective 
strength of their countries ; but, if the coun- 
try, which possessed twenty millions, were 
suddenly deprived of nineteen, and the circu- 
lation were reduced only to one million, while 
labour and commodities bore a price propor- 
tioned to the original twenty millions, it is 
evident that the abstraction of currency would 
destroy the energies and compacts of the 
people, curtail the resources and annihi- 
late the powers of the government, leading 
to social disorganization, foreign conquest 
or general emigration. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY, 225 

IX. 

A steady amount of currency is not only 
necessary to the public happiness, for the 
purpose of maintaining any acquired price 
of labour and commodities ; but an augmen- 
tation is demanded, whenever, from any 
causes, an increased circulation has taken 
place. Currency is always required and 
appropriated in proportion to the increase of 
transactions and circulation. Great trade, 
great cultivation, or great taxes, therefore 
require the ordinary circulation to be aug- 
mented in amount, to meet the demands of 
merchants, to supply capital to farmers, to 
make up for the balances of taxgatherers, and 
facilitate the operations of the exchequer. 

x. 

Since the discovery of the art of coining 
paper, a currency of specie seems to be less 
essential to the convenience of society. The 
purposes of internal circulation seem to be 
as well answered by a coinage of paper, or of 
land, or stocks, in the portable form of paper. 
It appears, indeed, to be of little consequence, 
whether a man carry his bullion to the mint 
to be alloyed and stamped, or whether he 

l2 



226 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

carry the titles to any estate, or a schedule of 
stock, and receive stamped paper of corres- 
ponding value. 

XI. 

The best and most important use of the 
precious metals is, to equalize accounts 
between merchants of different nations. If 
Spain, for example, consumes 100,000/. more 
of the produce and manufactures of Britain, 
than Britain consumes of the produce and 
manufactures of Spain, the balance of trade 
is so much in favour of Britain, and the 
100,000/. must be paid in bullion. A favour- 
able balance of trade always produces, there- 
fore, abundance of bullion, and vice versa. 
If a nation improvidently consume the com- 
modities of nations, which take no merchan- 
dize in return, the supply is only to be obtained 
for gold and silver. Savage tribes can obtain 
no foreign luxuries, because they have neither 
superfluous produce, desirable manufactures, 
nor gold and silver ; but, if they have either 
of these, they trade, on principles easily 
traced, like civilized nations. 

XII. 

The ruin of governments, and the deca- 
dence of empires, may be ascribed to a course 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 227 

of events something like the following: — 
An influx takes place of the precious metals, 
which, as currency, raises the nominal price of 
all commodities; and afterwards a departure 
of that currency, from some adventitious 
cause, leaves the nominal prices without cur- 
rency to support them. Hence, labour and 
commodities, at their established price, can 
no longer be purchased by the reduced (no- 
minal) wealth of individuals; nor can the 
usual proportion of currency be transferred, 
as before, to the government ; industry, there- 
fore, languishes, the people emigrate, the 
power of the state is palsied, the bond of 
national union, cemented by the common 
interest, becomes void, and the country is 
conquered or destroyed. Paper is a remedy, 
if it always represent real property. 

XI1T. 

The nature of currency, and the principles 
of its circulation, being therefore so intelli- 
gible, it appears that a wise and well-ordered 
government should place it under control^ 
and not leave its fluctuations to chance, nor 
suffer them to destroy the confidence and the 
energies of the people. It could not be diffi- 



228 



SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 



cult to determine on an amount lying between 
the maximum and minimum, which has 
proved, or would be likely to prove, salutary 
to a country, and then to apportion public 
issues, or coinages, to the fluctuations which 
circumstances might require. Such a provi- 
sion is evidently within the power of govern- 
ments, and its importance imposes it on them 
as an imperious duty. Currency is an arti- 
fice of society springing out of social conve- 
nience and convention; it ought, therefore, 
to be an object of social regulation, and to be 
the instrument of governments, not the arbiter 
of their fate, and the tyrant of society. 

XIV. 

To increase the powers of the state in car- 
rying on twenty years' warfare, an unredeemed 
mortgage on the real property of this country 
was incurred of above 800 millions. The 
cultivated land of Great Britain consists 
of about forty-eight millions of acres, and the 
houses of two millions, worth respectively 
about 1200 millions and 4000 millions; besides 
fluctuating stocks in husbandry and trade, 
worth 600 millions more. The mortgage 
therefore amounts to a full third of the value 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 229 

of the property; or, in other words, one-third 
of the property, taken at its nominal value, is 
mortgaged by the obligation of successive 
acts of parliament to the persons who lent 
their money to enable ministers to carry on 
their wars. 

xv. 

All tangible property in Britain is virtually 
pledged to the public creditor to the full third 
of its worth, as much as though the owner had 
signed a mortgage-deed ; and nothing can 
effect a release from the payment of the inter- 
est but discharging the principal. In pri- 
vate life, men economize for the purpose of 
discharging a mortgage ; but, notwithstanding 
the operation in cases of public and private 
mortgage is precisely the same, no proprietor 
of any estate in England has yet reduced his 
establishment, though no reasonable person 
can doubt that every estate is under a legal 
mortgage to the state for a third of its worth. 

XVI. 

The value of gold or silver, as the universal 
and perpetual standards of labour and pro- 
perty, cannot be determined by municipal 



230 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

regulation, because their worth is measured 
by the original labour bestowed on them in 
their first production at the mines, which 
quantity of labour they represent in their 
transfers among all nations ; but conventional 
or paper money of account represents no such 
original labour, and, being created at plea- 
sure, and circulated by artifice, is not only no 
public standard, but destructive of all standard 
in countries in which its circulation is forced. 

XVII. 

As one of the chief causes of poverty is 
the fluctuation of employments, and often the 
introduction of useful machinery, which super- 
sedes labour, three magistrates should be 
authorized to direct allowances from the 
county-rates, to be paid to artisans or 
labourers, who make it appear that, from 
causes not within their control, or of alleged 
general benefit to the public, they are for a 
season deprived of the means of sustaining 
themselves by their accustomed callings. 
The laws against combinations, in regard to 
the wages of labour, should apply with equal 
vigour to masters as well as to servants. At 
some poor establishment in every parish, all 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 231 

who declare themselves destitute and unable 
to procure employment should be entitled to 
receive, once a-day, a full and wholesome 
meal, in the porch or hall of the establishment. 

XVIII. 

A fund might be established for old age and 
poverty, to be derived from a pound paid at 
the birth of a child by parents or the parish, 
and accumulated by planting, or compound 
interest. Till such fund for old age were ren- 
dered available, the same description of poor 
ought to be provided for in buildings called Asy- 
lums for virtuous old Age, to which the aged poor 
should have access, on certificates from ten 
housekeepers of the parish or hundred. The 
diseased poor, blind, lame, and helpless, 
should be provided for in establishments 
formed for the purpose. The infant poor 
should be kept in separate establishments, and 
be educated, and taught some branch of 
handicraft by other poor. 

XIX. 

The only poor kept in buildings denomi- 
nated workhouses should be the idle and 
vicious, or those who are unable to procure 



232 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

the certificates of ten reputable housekeepers 
of their past industry and sobriety. No 
paupers should be conveyed from place to 
place except between the hours of six and 
six, and they should be removed in covered 
vehicles, and be lodged in dry places, or in 
such places as other persons are accustomed 
to lodge in, and receive three full meals per 
day, while on their journey. 

xx. 
Every country is the natural property of its 
inhabitants; and the inhabitants of every 
country are the natural lords of the soil, and 
masters of the produce. In other words, 
when emigrants take possession of any new- 
found and uninhabited country, the soil and 
its produce, as far as is practicable and desi- 
rable, are understood to be their equal com- 
mon property, to be seized for their common 
benefit, and to be substantially or virtually 
divided among them. Unequal relations 
of property would necessarily be created 
by subsequent social events and arrange- 
ments; and varied distributions would result 
from exertions of wisdom, prudence, and 
valour, in the organization and progression of 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 233 

society. But the first principles should, at all 
times, be understood, felt, and recognized, be- 
cause they serve as the immoveable bases of 
justice and philanthropy, and teach the duties 
of the affluent to the wretched. 

XXI. 

No errors are so numerous, compounded, 
and radical, as those which are generated bv 
social inequalities ; or by the various powers 
possessed by different men of appropriate 
luxuries and enjoyments. How numerous 
are our prejudices arising from the use of 
colours in apparel, from the glitter of metals 
and polished stones, from magnificent apart- 
ments, from rank and titles, and a thousand 
other inventions of society ! We talk gravely 
of one man as being better than another — we 
speak as a thing of course of the dignity of 
some families, and of the ignobleness of others, 
— as though the differences were natural, and 
not created by the mere fancies of men ! We 
shun, by a sort of instinct, a poor and ragged 
person, and embrace without reserve another 
w r ell clothed, owing to mere errors of judg- 
ment and prejudices of education; there being 
in fact no possible difference between the 



234 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

ragged and the sumptuously clothed, all the 
animal juices and functions of the one being 
necessarily the same as the other: analo- 
gous blood and analogous secretions of every 
king are produced in both by their similar 
functions; the differences, if any, being in 
favour of the poor man, from the simplicity 
of his diet. 

XXII. 

Knowledge does much for helpless indi- 
gence, in re-asserting the natural interest of 
the whole population in the soil. It thereby 
establishes their claim to support, and places 
that claim on the foundation of right, rather 
than of concession and charity; and, in de- 
veloping the common laws of the animal 
economy, it demonstrates the exact simili- 
tude of our common natures, and proves 
that the only differences among men are in 
their habits and education, and in their 
degrees of virtue and vice. The poor have, 
however, no rights except in regard to the 
land, and they have no claims on the pro- 
ducts of the industry of others, beyond the 
concessions made by benevolence. 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 235 

XXIII. 

True philosophy inculcates no system of 
disorganization ; seeks for no new divisions 
of property, except such as result from the 
free exertions of prudence, skill, and industry ; 
nor requires any associations of virtue with 
profligacy, or of wisdom with ignorance. It 
asserts great principles merely for the sake of 
just practical inferences; and insists on the 
authority of reason and justice, solely for the 
purpose of settling the moral relations of men, 
and their duties towards each other. It recog- 
nizes all the enjoyments and powers of the 
rich; but it stipulates for, and demands with 
undaunted and irresistible voice, the original 
and unalienated rights of the poor. 

XXIV. 

Who has visited a gaol, a workhouse, or 
an hospital? Who has done so, has witnessed 
the scanty concessions of wealth ! Who has 
passed from those mansions of woe to the 
mansions of the great, and has not shuddered 
at the contrast, even though he has found 
Httle difference in the happiness of their 
inmates? Is it then within the walls of pri- 
sons that opulence shews its tenderness for 



236 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

want and misery? Is it in the common work- 
house that wealth displays its justice? 

" Where children dwell who know no parent's care ; 
Parents who know no children's love dwell there r 
Heart-broken matrons on their joyless bed, 
Forsaken wives, and mothers never wed ; 
Dejected widows with unheeded tears 
And crippled age with more than childhood fears; 
The lame, the blind ; and far the happiest they! 
The moping idiot, and the madman gay." 

Or, is it in the public wards of hospitals, 
where disease, stalking in every form, aggra- 
vates disease, that men show their sympathy 
for their helpless and afflicted brethren 1 

xxv. 

Right reason demands of wise legislation 
and national sympathy, a more tender and 
adequate provision for poverty and misery, 
than is now afforded by our gaols, workhouses, 
and hospitals! It demands that the objects 
of want and suffering: should be treated with 
due respect to their moral habits, and as beings 
who have rights of their own and legiti- 
mate claims on society; and also as kindred 
human creatures, possessed of analogous feel- 
ings to those who foolishly consider distinctions 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 23? 

of society, and varied powers of indulgence, as 
generating differences in the common and im- 
mutable nature of man. 

XXVI. 

We ought to have Asylums for the aged and 
unfortunate poor ; and to insist on the neces- 
sary distinction between such asylums and 
Workhouses for the improvident and vicious 
poor. We ought to expect the erection, at the 
public ex pence, of asylums for incurable and 
chronic diseases, and also of hospitals for acute 
diseases. The aggregate expences of such a 
kind and effective system would be as 
follows :— 

300 asylums, or sets of alms-houses for the £. 
unfortunate poor, each providing for 100 souls, 
at 251. each per annum - 750,000 

300 work-houses for the profligate and im- 
provident poor, 150 each, at 10/. - - 450,000 

300 asylums, or sets of alms houses, for the 
incurably diseased, the blind, deaf, and dumb, 
insane, crippled, bed-ridden, &c. 100 in each, 
at 30/. each ... . 900,000 

300 hospitals for accidents 'and temporary 
sickness, 100 in each, 30/. each - - 900,000 

250,000 poor families relieved at their own 
houses with 4s. per week - - - - - 2,500,000 



238 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

1200 committees of management, each al- 
lowed 500Z. per annum - - - 600,000 

900 foundling hospitals for educating and 
feeding the children of the poor, about 250 in 
each, at 8/. each - - - -1,800,000 

The building or purchasing of 2100 suitable 
establishments, would cost each 5000Z. or 
9 millions, bearing an annuity interest of - 900,000 

The annual repairs would cost - - 450,000 

The poor, thus kindly and liberally provided 
for, would exceed in number a million. 

300 sets of alms-houses for 1 00 unfortunate Persons, 
poor, would provide for - - 30,000 

300 workhouses for improvident poor, would, 
at 150 each, provide for - - 45,000 

300 alms-houses for the helpless and incu- 
rable, at 100 each - - - "- 30,000 

300 hospitals for accidents and acute dis- 
eases, at 100 each - 30,000 

250,000 weekly pensions of 4s. would re- 
lieve or assist treble the number - - 750,000 

900 foundling hospitals for rearing and edu- 
cating orphans and poor children, at 250 each 225,000 



Total maintained or relieved - 1,110,000 
XXVII. 

By assigning the proportion of fifty of the 
alms-houses, &c. to Ireland, thirty-five to 



POLITICAL ECONOMY. 239 

I Scotland, and fifteen to Wales, 200 would 
remain to England, which, combining size, 

! population, and employments, would be after 
the rate of twenty-four to Yorkshire, twenty- 
four to Middlesex, two to Rutland, three to 
Huntingdonshire, &c. The committees of ma- 
nagement should be resident within the dis- 
tricts for which the respective establishments 
are formed, and should consist of a chairman 
and six members, nominated by the grand jury 
of the county, from among persons possessing 
100 acres of freehold land, or occupying 300 
acres on lease. Two to go out by rotation 
every year, and to be ineligible to be re-elected 
till all those qualified have served. The 
eligibility to the alms-houses should be de- 
cided by the certificate of twelve near 
neighbours and employers. A reformed con- 
duct in the workhouse should lead to a trans- 
fer to the alms-houses ; h and a disorderly 
conduct in the latter, proved before the com- 
missioners, to a transfer to the workhouse. 

XXVIII. 

If it be asked why there are poor, and why 
the poor are to be tolerated, it may be replied, 
because the faculties of all men do not qualify 



240 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

them to cope with society, and they are over- 
reached and overwhelmed; because this ine- 
quality of power is still more evident in old 
age, among single women, widows, and chil- 
dren, few or none of whom can wholly maintain 
themselves by their industry ; because the 
progress of taxation, and the fluctuating 
value of money, serve constantly to cheat 
labour of its reward, the laws compelling the 
labourer to follow the rise of commodities at 
a ruinous distance, and to maintain a contest, 
at every step he takes, to indemnify himself; 
because those who live by industry are unable 
to make reserves against sickness, accidents, 
and old age; — because parents who subsist 
by labour, are unable to make provision for 
those children whom they may leave orphans; 
— because the lands, the common birth-right 
of the whole population, are previously ab- 
sorbed and occupied; — because speculations 
and monopolies in the definite quantity of 
the land of the realm have diminished the 
number of farms, and the means of supporting 
and rearing families out of their superfluities; 
— because the unrestricted avarice of land- 
owners has led them to prefer to let their 
lands to monopolizing and speculating graziers, 



TRUTH. 243 

who feed cattle instead of men, and em- 
ploy but one shepherd where ten families 
used to subsist ; and, because those who 
are unable to obtain a subsistence by 
exerting such a quantity of labour as nature 
would compel them to bestow on their propor- 
tion of soil, have a right to indemnity from 
those who prefer keeping the soil in their own 
hands. 

xxxvi. 

When the prejudices, of which man is the 
creature, are duly considered, the institutions 
of Elizabeth, imperfect as they were, deserve 
admiration. Statesmen are too often the 
agents of public prejudice, and are compelled 
to follow, rather than precede, public intelli- 
gence. If a Walsingham or Cecil now directed 
a code of Poor Laws, their system would 
vary in the degree in which the intelligence 
of the reign of George the Fourth exceeds 
that of Elizabeth; and, if we are now be- 
come, or are becoming, the creatures of supe- 
rior reason, the system produced will be one 
of increased philanthropy and justice. 



M 



GOLDEN RULES FOR MAGISTRATES. 



i. 
The people's estimation of the government 
under which they live, being founded on the 
pure, just, and rational administration of the 
laws, it ought to be felt that no social duties 
are more important and obligatory than those 
of a local magistrate or justice of the peace. 

ii. 

All such magistrates being representatives, 
in regard to their particular powers, of the 
constitutional authority of the supreme exe- 
cutive government, they are bound in every 
act of their office to consider themselves as 
delegates of the sovereign, and, in consonance 
with the royal oath, " to execute law and 
justice in mercy, and to govern the people 
according to the statutes agreed on in parlia- 
ment, and to the laws and customs of the 
kingdom/' 



MAGISTRATES. 245 

III. 

An English magistrate should always bear 
in mind that the supreme executive authority, 
of which he is the local representative, is 
restricted in its powers by the laws and the 
constitution ; and the rights and privileges 
of a free people are as inviolable as the pre- 
rogatives of the sovereign ; and that English 
magistrates are not instruments of a despotic 
power, but agents of a constitutional monarch, 
whose obligations to his people are determined 
by the same laws that constitute the obliga- 
tions of the people. 

IV. 

An English magistrate should feel that 
every subject of these realms, be he rich or 
be he poor, be he accuser or under accusation, 
is equal in the eye of the law ; that the laws 
of England are no respectors of persons; 
that they can never be dispensed with to suit 
the humour of the magistrate or the policy of 
the crown ; and that they are literally impera- 
tive in their popular sense, until they have 
been altered or repealed by the conjoint 
authorities which made them. 



246 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

V. 

The cardinal virtues of all magistracy are 

INCORRUPTIBILITY, IMPARTIALITY, VIGILANCE, 
and BENEVOLENCE. 

VI 

An incorruptible magistrate will not only 
be incorruptible in his own conduct, directly 
and indirectly, immediately and remotely; 
but he will exercise a wholesome suspicion in 
regard to the possible corruptions, extortions, 
and oppressions, practised by his clerks, con- 
stables, officers, and other agents of his 
authority. 

VII. 

An impartial magistrate will jealously guard 
every avenue of his mind against the vice 
and weakness of partiality ; he will be careful 
not to be influenced by ex parte statements, 
by crafty or malignant insinuations, or by 
interested and vulgar prejudices ; and he will 
never fail to remember that, although justice 
is blind in regard to the parties, she is all eye 
in her search after the truth. 

VIII. 

A vigilant magistrate will alwavs hear both 
sides before he makes his determination ; he 



MAGISTRATES. 247 

will patiently submit to the awkwardness, 
timidity, and inexperience of either of the 
parties; he will cautiously balance the vari- 
ous points of evidence, and will persevere in 
his examinations, when necessary, till he has 
disentangled the case before him from all 
doubt and uncertainty. 

IX. 

A benevolent magistrate will never forget 
that mercy is the brightest ornament of all 
power ; he will never suffer any cruelty, 
threat, or wanton insult, to be committed on 
persons under accusation, to extort confes- 
sions, or on any other pretence whatsoever; 
he will never exact bail beyond the means 
of the parties ; he will himself inspect all places 
of temporary or permanent confinement ; and he 
will carefully prevent violations of humanity 
in the various subaltern agents of his juris- 
diction. 



Magistrates should never forget that impri- 
sonment is punishment ; that to be sent to 
prison destroys the character of a man, while 
a residence there blunts his moral feelings, 



248 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

and renders him indifferent as to his future 
life. No magistrate ought, therefore, to be 
forward to commit for trial, except in the 
case of heinous offences, or habitual culprits. 
Law is not an active inquisition : the magis- 
trate is bound to hear a charge, but it lies 
with himself to bind the parties to prosecute ; 
and, as this is reluctantly done in nine cases 
out of ten, so a wise and humane magistrate 
should permit the parties to compromise, 
whenever the offence is trivial, and the offen- 
der a novice. But, in all such cases, the 
magistrate must be capable of acting a manly 
part, and be able to maintain his own upright 
views ; for there are Dracos in every commis- 
sion, and knaves and officers about every 
bench, whose fees depend on the number of 
commitments and prosecutions. 

XI. 

A public-spirited magistrate will always 
be easy of access on special occasions which 
demand his interposition, and he will be 
punctual in his attendance at those known 
periods which he sets apart for the adminis- 
tration of justice. 



MAGISTRATES. 249 

XII. 

When two or more magistrates are acting 
together, they should never disgrace the seat 
of justice by their open differences or jealou- 
sies, but, when such arise, ought to retire and 
agree on any point at issue between them- 
selves, before they appear again on the bench ; 
and every honourable man will strictly guard 
himself against the possibility that his own 
peevish feelings towards a brother magistrate 
may affect the interest of the parties before 
them, by any spirit of mutual contradiction 
or opposition. Whenever it happens that 
two magistrates feel a mutual dislike of each 
other, they ought never to act by themselves, 
but always call in the aid of a third or fourth, 
to neutralize their differences. 

XIII. 

In hearing charges brought before him, a 
magistrate should remember the dependence 
of the parties on his patient attention ; his 
examinations should be public, but in most 
cases the witnesses ought not to be heard in 
each other's presence; he should be jealous 
of the influence of rewards and penalties on 
the evidence of the informers ; he should 



250 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

warily guard himself against the malignant 
feelings or sinister designs of accusers ; and, 
before he commits or convicts, he should be 
thoroughly satisfied that the act charged was 
perpetrated with a criminal intention, and 
contrary to the true intent of some statute, 
law, or ordinance of the realm. 

XIV. 

A worthy magistrate will beware of being 
misled by the boisterous logic of stern and 
unfeeling men, when they have the misfortune 
to have such for their colleagues. Many men, 
brought up in the lap of luxury, and strangers 
by fortune to the sufferings which goad men 
into obliquities of conduct, feel it a duty 
never to compromise with any breach of the 
law, however venial, and, like Draco, visit 
crimes of every shade with the same inflexible 
severity ; but the discriminating and humane 
magistrate will oppose all such with inflexible 
firmness, and never yield to any decision in 
which law and justice are not tempered with 
sympathy and mercy. 

xv. 
In all adjudications relative to the poor, an 
upright magistrate should be the poor man's 



MAGISTRATES. 251 

friend, and the guardian of the destitute and 
helpless, against the sordid calculations of 
avarice, and the overbearing spirit of wealth, 
accurately discriminating between the impo- 
sitions of idleness and vice, and the claims of 
industry and virtue. 

XVI. 

He ought to be sensible that the letter of 
the laws is the rule of conduct for subjects as 
well as magistrates, and that no man is 
amenable to magisterial authority who has 
not offended against the ordinary and obvious 
interpretation of some law, and who has not 
been convicted, on the oaths of creditable 
witnesses, either by the recorded adjudica- 
tion of a justice of the peace, or by the solemn 
verdict of a jury of his country. 

XVII. 

In committing to prison, the magistrate 
should carefully distinguish whether the 
object is correction after conviction, or simple 
detention before trial, and should direct his 
warrant accordingly: no man being liable to 
be sent to a correctional prison, or subject 
to a correctional discipline, except as a pu- 

m2 



252 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

nishment after a recorded conviction; and 
simple detention ought to take place in the 
sheriff's gaol only, because the sheriff is an 
honourable officer, bound by the ancient laws 
of the land to perform the important duty of 
making returns to all sessions of gaol de- 
livery. 

XVIII. 

In imposing penalties, where the statute 
has given a discretion to the magistrate, he 
ought to be governed in his decision as well 
by the means of the parties, as by the repe- 
tition or turpitude of the offence; because 
a mulct implies but a portion of an offender's 
means, and it is with a view to various shades 
of culpability that the law has empowered 
the magistrate to exercise an equitable dis- 
cretion. 

XIX. 

In assigning punishments, it should be 
considered that the penalties of the law al- 
ways contemplate extreme cases of turpitude, 
generally leaving it to the magistrate to miti- 
gate and apportion the punishment according 
to the circumstances of every offence ; in 



MAGISTRATES. 



253 



doing which, it should be remembered, that 
the scripture enjoins us "to forgive our 
brother seventy times seven times ;" that the 
penalties of the law ought never to be pas- 
sionate or vindictive, but to be simply cau- 
tionary for first or trivial offences, gently 
corrective for second offences, and exemplary 
and severe only when applied to incorrigible 
culprits, or to very heinous crimes. 

xx. 

Every justice of the peace who is anxious 
to preserve the honour of the laws, will never 
discourage appeals against his own convic- 
tions, or in any way obstruct or influence the 
decision of such appeals ; and, as often as 
the letter or spirit of the law appears to him 
to have borne with undue severity on indivi- 
duals, or families, he will benevolently ascer- 
tain the extenuating circumstances of the 
case, and bring them in due form before the 
bench in sessions, or before the grand jury at 
the assizes, in order that the suffering party 
may, through their recommendation to the 
proper authority, obtain the royal pardon. 

xxi. 

A discreet magistrate will, on all occasions, 

avoid mixing in decisions that involve his 

6 



254 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

personal interests, his family connexions, his 
friendships, or his known or latent enmities. 
In all such cases, he ought magnanimously 
to retire from the bench at sessions, or to call 
one or more of the neighbouring magistrates 
into his jurisdiction. He should remember, 
that his character will be in a state of ha- 
zard whenever his predilections as a private 
man, a politician, or a theologian, interfere 
with the independence of his judgments as a 
magistrate. 

XXII. 

A paternal magistrate will do more good 
in his neighbourhood by his advice and ex- 
ample, than by the force of authority and 
coercion. He should lend his countenance to 
the virtuous, and his protection to the unfor- 
tunate ; but, above all, he should set a good 
example in his own conduct, and exact it 
from all in authority beneath him ; because 
he can never punish with effect any vices 
which he practises himself, or tolerates in 
his agents; and their combined example will 
prove more powerful than all the instruments 
of judicial terror. 



1 



MAGISTRATES. 255 

XXIII. 

A justice of the peace, holding a commis- 
sion from a constitutional king of England, 
and his authority under the mild laws of 
England, will always feel that his power is 
conferred for the purpose of increasing the 
happiness of all who are subject to his cog- 
nizance, and within his jurisdiction ; that he 
is the guardian of the public morals, a con- 
servator of the peace, and protector of the 
public and personal rights of the people ; and 
that it much depends on the wisdom and 
prudence of justices of the peace, whether 
the social compact which binds the people 
into one nation under one ruler and one code 
of laws, serve as a curse or a blessing. 



GOLDEN RULES FOR SHERIFFS. 



Anciently all sheriffs were elected annually 
by that portion of the people in whose behalf 
they were to serve the office. For five centu- 
ries they have been returned by the crown ; but, 
by the constitution, they still are popular 
officers, appointed to execute the laws in the 
name of the sovereign, with due respect to 
the privileges of the people. 

ii. 
The general duties of the sheriff's office 
are six -fold : — 

1. As executor of all writs an(^ legal 
process. 

2. As keeper of the prisons. 

3. As summoner of jurymen. 

4. As guardian of courts of law. 

5. As executioner of all summary punish- 
ments. 

6. As presiding officer at the return of all 



SHERIFFS. 257 

representatives to the Wittenagemote, or 
Parliament. 

in. 
To perform these important functions use- 
fully, effectively, and honourably, there are 
requisite, in the person of the sheriff, 

1. Public spirit, and independence of mind 
and fortune. 

2. Habitual sentiments of charity for the 
frailties, and of tenderness for the misfor- 
tunes of his fellow-beings. 

3. An unshaken attachment to public li- 
berty, and to the person of the sovereign. 

4. Persevering vigilance in the superin- 
tendance of every department of duty, taking 
nothing on trust, and leaving nothing to 
deputies. 

5. An immoveable respect for principles, 
never compromising them to gratify temporary 
prejudices or practices. 

6. Courage to resist the clamours and 
intrigues of those who profit by abuses. 

7. Benevolence in examining into the cases 
of prisoners, and reporting on them with 
zeal to proper authorities. 



258 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

IV. 

To visit the gaols frequently, and at 
unexpected seasons, unaccompanied by gaol- 
ers or turnkeys, taking care that imprison- 
ment includes no punishment beyond safe 
custody. 

v. 

To ameliorate the condition of the pri- 
soners and their families, and to report to the 
executive government those cases on which 
the law bears with unreasonable severity. 

VI. 

To take care that no punishment is 
increased owing to any popular prejudice 
against the criminal, and that all the judg- 
ments of the law are executed in tenderness 
and mercy. 

VII. 

To strike all juries in person, and to take 
especial care that the spirit of all the laws for 
striking juries is acted upon. 

VIII. 

To guard against cabals, prejudices, 
intrigues, and improper influence in juries, by 



SHERIFFS. 259 

calling each jury in a predetermined order, 
from at least three remote districts of the 
jurisdiction. 

IX. 

To summon grand-juries, in a similar 
rotation, from among the most intelligent and 
independent persons of every district, taking 
care that there is a due mixture and balance of 
local interests in every grand-jury. 

x. 

To examine minutely and scrupulously 
every charge made against gaolers, turnkeys, 
bailiffs, and their followers ; to visit lock-up 
houses, and beware that no extortionate or 
vexatious practices take place in exacting 
bail. 

XI. 

In a word, the security, under the law of 
our persons and properties, against oppression 
or mal-administration, is in the hands of the 
sheriff; and it depends greatly on his vigi- 
lance, whether the laws serve as a means of 
protection or annoyance. While the verdicts 
of juries remain a barrier against the caprices 
of judges, and the influence of wealth and 



260 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

power, it is evidently of the highest import- 
ance that the sheriff summon them in the way 
which is most likely to secure an impartial and 
independent decision, for therein lies the 
essence of English liberty. On the intelli- 
gence and uprightness of this executive officer 
depends, therefore, many of the active benefits 
of the constitution of England, and many 
of those features which render this empire, in 
respect to civil liberty, superior to most other 
nations. 



GOLDEN RULES FOR JURYMEN, 



i. 

The most grievous of personal wrongs, and 
the most hopeless of social miseries, being 
oppression and injustice, under the sanction 
and colour of law, and the plausible forms 
of trial by jury; the most important of social 
and moral obligations are imposed on the 
integrity, firmness, and discrimination of the 
several individuals who compose grand and 
petit juries. 

ii. 

An honest juryman should suffer death 
rather than consent to any decision which he 
feels to be doubtful or unjust; or which, in 
his own private judgment, is not warranted 
by clear and uncontrovertible positive evi- 
dence. 

in. 
Every juryman should be jealous that no 
other opinion than his own directs his deci- 



262 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

sion ; for his office would be a mockery on 
himself, on the parties, and on his country, if 
his decision were not the result of his own 
unbiassed convictions. The juryman who, 
ignorant of his duties, is inattentive to the 
progress of a trial, and decides on the sug- 
gestion of others, betrays his sacred duty, 
and is himself unworthy of the privileges of 
the law and of the protection of justice. 

IV. 

In deliberating on the verdict, every jury- 
man is bound to think for himself; to give 
his individual opinion freely and boldly ; and 
to bear in mind that it is the sole and entire 
object of the institution of juries, that every 
juryman for himself should decide according 
to his own judgment on the points at issue. 

v. 

The jury are bound to decide fully and 
finally by a general verdict in criminal cases 
of "guilty" or " not guilty;" or, in civil 
cases, " for the plaintiff" or "for the defen- 
dant;" unless, at the request of the judge, 
they reserve some point of law; but such 
special verdict should even then be explicit, 



JURYMEN. 263 

final, and conclusive, with respect to the facts 
of the case. 

VI. 

Every man is presumed to be innocent 
till he has clearly been proved to be guilty : 
the onus of the proof of guilt lies, therefore, 
on the accuser ; and, as no accused person is 
bound, required, or expected, to prove his own 
innocency, so no presumption ought to be 
admitted against him, on his failing to prove 
a negative to the charge. 

VII. 

The accused ought to enjoy the benefit of 
all doubts, and of all uncertainty in the evi- 
dence ; because it is better that a hundred 
guilty persons should escape punishment, 
than that one innocent person should be 
unjustly convicted : the issue of a criminal 
trial involving every thing dear to the accused, 
if he be found guilty ; while his acquittal, 
though perchance he might be guilty, is 
comparatively unimportant to the public. 

VIII. 

Every juror should perform his duty in 
regard to the accused, or decide between the 



264 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

plaintiff and defendant, as he would desire 
that those parties should act in regard to 
himself, were their situations changed. This 
sentiment should direct the juryman's atten- 
tion during the trial, his anxiety in consider- 
ing the verdict, and his caution in determining 
upon it. 

IX. 

Jurors ought to guard themselves against 
popular prejudices, against the insidious so- 
phistry and daring artifices of counsel, and 
against undue influence in whatever quarter 
it may arise ; and decide on an abstract and 
cool consideration of the proven facts, and 
the positive evidence of credible witnesses. 



Unanimity is required in every verdict of 
a jury, because universal concurrence is the 
only test of truth, and a true verdict must 
necessarily produce unanimity : for in every 
case there exists some truth which it is the 
office and duty of the jury to detect and 
declare ; while the required unanimity serves 
to render every one of the jury responsible 
to his own conscience, to the public, and to 
the parties. 



JURYMEN. 265 

XI. 

Every juryman should be specially cautious 
of convicting persons on evidence merely pre- 
sumptive and circumstantial ; the conviction 
and legal punishment are positive, and so, 
as far as possible, ought to be the proofs : no 
reasoning, however ingenious, and no cir- 
cumstances, however corresponding, being 
equivalent to one positive proof, either in 
behalf of, or against the accused. Doubt 
ought to produce a verdict of not guilty. 

XII. 

The jury should carefully consider how far 
the evidence sustains the charge of a criminal 
design in the accused ; no act whatever, which 
has not been committed with a proven or 
obviously criminal mind or intention, involving 
any guilt, or any penal responsibility. Thus 
no man ought to be convicted of a crime for 
any act committed in the exercise of his 
lawful business. 

XIII. 

A careful juror should commit the material 
points to writing, and compare from his notes 
the evidence on both sides, deciding on his 



266 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

intuitive perceptions of right and wrong, and 
maintaining a vigilant caution against the 
prejudices, combinations, or misconceptions 
of witnesses, who, by desire of the jury, 
ought never to be allowed to be examined in 
the hearing of one another. 

XIV. 

No man being responsible for the crime or 
act of another, no prejudice whatever should 
lie against an accused person, because some 
one has committed a crime, however enor- 
mous ; and the jury, before they convict any 
accused person, should take care that the 
charge has been brought home by distinct 
and unequivocal testimony, as well in regard 
to personal identity as to the fact, and the 
criminal intention. 

xv. 

Juries should be governed in framing their 
verdict by the precise letter and fair con- 
struction of the law, as well as by the facts 
of the case. It is not their province to supply 
defects in the law, nor to stretch its meaning, 
lest any crime should go unpunished. Thus 
no man ought to be convicted of murder, 



JURYMEN. 267 

unless the unlawful intention to kill be made 
palpable ; and no man ought to be convicted 
of forgery, unless he has imitated or adopted 
another man's signature, with a manifest 
intention to defraud; for, if the law has not 
provided for the punishment of every case of 
homicide, and of frauds which are not actual 
forgeries, it is not the province of juries to 
supply the deficiency. 

xvi. 

The punishment inflicted by the court being 
generally founded on the abstract fact of the 
jury's conviction, with little or no regard to 
any peculiar features of each case ; and the 
laws themselves being generally made for 
extreme cases of turpitude, the jury ought to 
recommend the guilty to mercy, as often as 
the circumstances afford a justifiable reason 
for abating the severity of legal punishment. 

XVII. 

Every juryman, before he consents to a 
verdict, should reflect that the decision is 
conclusive of the hopes and fate of the party 
or parties implicated : for, as the laws of 
England have provided no court of appeal 

N 



268 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

against erroneous decisions of juries, so these 
ought never to decide on presumptions or 
probabilities ; but their verdict ought to be 
as much a matter of certainty as its conse- 
quences are certain and inevitable, in regard 
to the accused parties. 

XVIII. 

Though persons convicted of crimes may 
sometimes obtain the royal pardon, yet the 
verdict of the jury is usually made an insu- 
perable obstacle ; and though in civil cases, 
verdicts are sometimes set aside, yet the ex- 
pences are ruinous to the parties. In sentences 
passed by courts of law, and in all ulterior 
proceedings, it is pertinaciously and gravely 
assumed that twelve honest men have severally 
agreed on the verdict, not in a careless, hasty, 
or inconsiderate manner, but carefully, con- 
scientiously, and deliberately. iVll the conse- 
quence of legal murders, oppressions, and 
wrongs, rest therefore solely on every juror 
who has consented to an unjust verdict. 

XIX. 

Honest and independent jurors should 
beware of being made the tools of any practised 



JURYMEN. 269 

jurors, who, under the name of special jury- 
men, sometimes make a trade of the office, 
and for the purpose of retaining a profitable 
employment, endeavour, as often as possible, 
to give a verdict in accordance with the wishes 
of the court. Some men are sycophants to 
promote their sinister views, while too many 
others are sycophants of power from habit. 
Both classes are equally dangerous in the 
jury-box, and every upright juror should 
avoid becoming their dupe, however specious, 
artful, or overbearing, may be their conduct 

xx. 

Jurors should view with jealousy all charges 
against accused persons who appear to have 
been deprived of any privileges to which they 
are entitled by the usages of the constitution, 
and a due respect to the ends of justice : thus 
no accused person ought to have been com- 
mitted for trial, except on the oath of at least 
one credible witness ; or called on to plead 
unless on the indictment of twelve of a grand 
jury ; or arraigned on trial unless he has been 
supplied with a copy of the same, in time suf- 
ficient to summon witnesses ; and has enjoyed, 
during his previous detention, the free access 



270 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

of his friends to concert measures for his 
defence. 

XXI. 

As grand juries examine witnesses only 
against the accused, every case, so unopposed 
by any defence, ought to be completely and 
unequivocally made out as to the facts, the 
evil intention, and the application of the law ; 
and the exercise of a scrupulous and jealous 
caution against unfounded, malicious, and 
irrelevant, charges, can be attended with little 
danger or injury to the public, compared with 
the ifreparable injury which the admission of 
a frivolous or malicious indictment may inflict 
on innocent and respectable persons. 

XXII. 

The duties of a coroiNer's jury are often of 
the deepest importance to justice and liberty, 
being the first tribunal to decide on such acts 
of oppression, or abuses of power, as have led 
to fatal results. Such jurors are enabled to 
mark for punishment any murders committed 
by the wanton introduction of soldiery; and 
also to confer impunity on any just resistance 
made against unwarranted acts which may 



JURYMEN. 271 

have been attempted under colour of law, or 
by any improper assumption of authority. 

XXIII. 

In trying charges of libel, sedition, or trea- 
son, the jury should be jealously on their 
guard against party prejudices, and the influ- 
ence of the administration for the time being ; 
and they should bear in mind, that it is chiefly 
in such cases, that juries are so eminently the 
barriers of public liberty, the securities of the 
freedom of the press, and the guardians of 
their fellow-citizens in its wholesome ex- 
ercise. 

XXIV, 

In trying libel causes, jurors ought never to 
lose sight of the important services rendered to 
mankind, by the sacred right of freely discus- 
sing public topics, and the public conduct of 
public men ; and of examining, asserting, and 
printing, the truth on all subjects of general 
interest; and, as the law of libel has in effect 
forbidden them to find a verdict of guilty, on 
mere proof of publication, so, in the absence of 
all positive proof of criminal intention, they 



272 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

are warranted by that law in finding a general 
verdict of not guilty. 

XXV. 

In deciding on political questions in general, 
every upright juror should respect the funda- 
mental laws of the realm as laid down in 
Magna Charta, the Petition of Right, and the 
Bill of Rights; and should carefully avoid 
becoming the dupe of the sophistry of any- 
obsequious authorities, or being made an 
instrument to give effect to temporary laws 
passed by overbearing factions, in contraven- 
tion of the laws of God and right reason, of the 
just rights of the people, and of the fundamen- 
tal principles and practices of the British con- 
stitution. 

XXVI. 

The foreman should ascertain and equally 
respect every opinion in the jury; and the 
verdict, after every member of the jury has 
been consulted, and it has been unanimously 
agreed upon, should be solemnly delivered ; no 
variation being permitted to take place, on the 
suggestion or dictation of any one, unless the 
jury, before their decision is recorded, choose 



JURYMEN. 273 

to retire again and formally sanction such pro- 
posed variation by their own new verdict. 

XXVII. 

Previous to declaring their verdict, every 
juror should give the accused the fair benefit 
of those distinctions in the time, quantity, and 
quality, of offences, which have been explained 
by the judge or counsel ; and he should 
anxiously consider, whether the accused has 
been identified, whether the fact charged has 
been brought home to him, whether the crime 
alleged is within the meaning and cognizance 
of the law, founding the verdict on his com- 
bined view of proven, not presumptive, facts, 
and established, not constructive, law. 

XXVIII. 

It being the sole object of the proceedings 
in every trial to enable the jury to acquire 
correct views of the facts which bear on the 
questions at issue ; it is the duty of every jury- 
man to ask pertinent questions for his own 
satisfaction; to protect timid, inexperienced, 
and embarrassed, witnesses; to receive with 
caution the testimony of others, who are under 
the influence of fear, hatred, or expected 



274 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

reward ; and to require the production of any 
species of evidence which is tendered or 
attainable, and which appears to him to be 
necessary. 

XXIX. 

It is the delicate but sacred duty of jury-- 
men, to guard against the undue interference 
or mistaken views of judges, or presiding 
magistrates, who often take on themselves to 
direct and dictate to juries, and in bad times 
have presumed to reprimand them for honest 
verdicts, or bully them into dishonest ones. 
The judge is authorized to expound the law, 
and if the jury cannot write, or have neglected 
to take down the evidence, it is necessary he 
should recapitulate the substance of his notes, 
but he is never warranted in dictating and 
over-ruling the decision. He should be re- 
spected by the jury, but not be implicitly 
obeyed. 

XXX. 

Every juryman should recollect that while 
in the jury-box he is acting for his country ; 
that, in regard to cases brought before him, 
he is the uncontroled arbiter of justice; that 



JURYMEN. 275 

he is the constitutional protector of suitors, 
and accused persons, against legal quibbles 
and oppressions ; that he is the living guardian 
for his posterity of those sacred powers of 
juries, transmitted to him by his forefathers; 
and that the preservation of justice and 
liberty depends on every firm and upright 
man doing his duty in every jury. 



n 2 



GOLDEN RULES FOR GRAND JURYMEN. 



i. 
A grand jury is one of the most ancient and 
respectable tribunals known to the constitution 
of this kingdom, and its members are usually 
gentlemen of the highest consequence and best 
figure in the county. A knowledge of the 
duties and powers of a grand juryman is ab- 
solutely necessary to every gentleman in the 
kingdom, because his own property, his 
liberty, and his life, depend upon maintaining 
in its legal force this branch of trial by jury. — 
Blackstone, book iii. chap. 23. 

ii. 
Their foreman is to be chosen by themselves, 
and any attempt on the part of the court, or 
sheriff, to nominate him, or swear him in as 
such, should be resisted. In Middlesex it is 
usual to choose a foreman in the grand jury 
room, after which, the members, with him at 
their head, present themselves in court to be 
sworn in. 



GRAND JURYMEN. 277 

III. 

The grand jury ought to be composed of 
twenty-three persons, but the business fre- 
quently proceeds, although that number are 
not present, the foreman taking care that no 
bill is found unless supported by the votes of 
twelve of the jurymen. — Blackstone, book 
iv. chap. 23, sec. 2. 

IV. 

As it is the express object of a grand jury to 
decide whether there is any matter of accusa- 
tion against the party accused, or whether he 
ought to be put on his defence, they are com- 
petent to decide finally and totally on all the 
parts of the charge, both as to fact and inten- 
tion.— Sfo/. 29 Eliz. 3. cap. 4. and 42. 
Eliz. 3. cap. 3. They stand in the situation 
of umpires between the accuser and the 
accused, and are thus able at all times to pro- 
tect the weak against the strong. This uncon - 
troled and important power of a grand jury 
constitutes one of the chief glories of the con- 
stitution of England, and is a grand bulwark 
of the liberties of the people. 

v. 
A grand jury ought to be thoroughly and 
completely satisfied of the truth of all the parts 



278 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

of an indictment before they find it, and ought 
never to be influenced by remote probabilities. 
It is a very serious and solemn matter for a 
person to be placed on his trial at the bar of a 
court of justice ; and as the grand jury hear 
evidence only on the side of the prosecution . 
the whole case ought to be clearly and 
unquestionably made out by the prosecutor 
to justify them in finding a true bill. 

VI. 

Grand juries have power to expose, if not 
to correct, all abuses of the state, of law, and of 
society in general, by due presentment. Any 
undue powers assumed by ministers of state, 
or courts of law, contrary to the usage and 
spirit of the constitution — any conspiracy by 
which the loose and arbitrary practice of the 
Court of Chancery permits lawyers and cli- 
ents to worry and injure one another— any 
unconstitutional practices in local elections of 
members of parliament — any tyrannical and 
cruel decisions of magistrates, or the corrupt 
and capricious conduct of any judge of assize, 
— are fit and proper objects for the inquisition 
and presentment of grand juries ; and, as 
there exists no more prompt and suitable 
remedy for the formal exposure, and speedy 



I 



GRAND JURYMEN. 279 

correction of such evils, the country and go- 
vernment rely on them honestly and fearlessly 
to do their duty. 

VII. 

To find a bill, twelve at least of the grand 
jury must agree that the evidence is complete 
and satisfactory. Cro. Eliz. 654 : Hob. 248. 
2 Inst. 387 : 3 Inst 30. When this is the 
case, the words — "A true bill," are to be 
inserted on the back of the indictment ; but, 
when twelve do not hold up their hands, the 
words — " not found" are to be endorsed by 
the foreman. It is usual to put the question 
only in the affirmative, and if the show of 
hands is less than twelve, the bill is instantly 
endorsed — "not found." 

viii. 
No person not of the grand jury, no bar- 
rister, attorney, clerk of the court, or other 
person, can be present during the deliberations 
and decisions of the grand jury ; but it is some- 
times usual for a deputation of the jury to con- 
sult the court on any point of law. 

IX. 

When two or more persons are included in 
the same bill, the names of each ought to be 



280 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

mentioned aloud in their turn, by the foreman, 
because some may be guilty, and others 
innocent. 

x. 

In an indictment for stealing, if the crime is 
not proved against the thief, the accessary 
must be acquitted as matter of course, be- 
cause if there is no thief there can be no 
receiver. 

XI. 

For the dispatch of business, and the conve- 
nience of witnesses, all bills against the same 
person ought to be the subject of uninter- 
rupted decision ; and, for the same and other 
reasons, a list of the bills found and not found 
should, from time to time, or as often as re- 
ported to the court, be affixed on the outside 
of the door of the grand jury chamber, or in 
some other conspicuous place, and be signed 
by the foreman. 

XII. 

The state of the several prisons, the malver- 
sation of the jailors and turnkeys, the conduct 
of magistrates, all gross and scandalous abuses, 



GRAND JURYMEN. 281 

acts of public oppression, and all public 
nuisances, within the county, are proper 
objects for the enquiry, examination, and 
presentment, of a grand jury. 

xm. 

One of the grand jury ought to sit at the 
right hand of the foreman, and assist him in 
reading the indictments. Gentlemen who 
require to be absent usually consult the fore- 
man, and obtain his consent. 



GOLDEN RULES FOR JOURNALISTS, 



A daily, weekly, or monthly, journalist, is a 
chronicler of the living age, on whom de- 
pend- those reports which are to stimulate 
industry, virtue, and talents, and to repress 
vice, fraud, and empiricism, — to sustain truth 
and oppo.se falsehood, — and to advance the in- 
terests of the human race and his country. 

ii. 

An able journalist will study every subject 
of public interest so as not to mislead his 
readers, — will discriminate the pretensions of 
men who are candidates for public notice, or 
whose pursuits are of a public nature, — and 
will make himself acquainted with all designs 
for the public good, and with all plans of 
public improvement, and promote them volun- 
tarily and zealously. 



JOURNALISTS. 283 

III. 

Of all power, that of the press is the most 
efficient and extended; and yet the requisites, 
or means of attaining this power, include none 
of the great qualities of ordinary ambition. 
Half that is read is published without the 
responsibility of the writer's name ; and the 
means of evading the law are so multifarious, 
that a literary assassin may for years scatter 
his squibs, irony, inuendoes, and insinuations, 
with perfect impunity, and even be rewarded 
by patronage proportioned to his want of 
honour, truth, feeling, and principle. 

IV. 

The unshackled exercise of free dis- 
cussion, and of publishing truth on all subjects 
useful and interesting to society, — is the great 
bulwark of civil and religious liberty, — and is a 
fundamental right of the British people, and 
an undoubted part of the common law of 
England; and, without limitation or condition, 
ought to be maintained and asserted by all 
who duly feel and duly respect the value of 
truth and liberty. 

v. 
An anonymous and irresponsible public 
press is, of necessity, the facile instrument of 



284 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

every bad passion ; yet, even in its worst 
state, it is the effective guardian of our liber- 
ties, and a constant check on abuses and 
obliquities of power. To combine its benefi- 
cent qualities with the sanction of responsible 
authority for its articles, — to maintain its use 
without its abuse, — to keep it free under 
wholesome restraint, — ought to be the delicate 
task of cautious and anxious legislation. 

VI. 

An anonymous irresponsible public press is, 
in truth, a species of mob government, or the 
most cruel species of tyranny, in which the 
worst men may have great influence ; while, to 
the ordinary characteristics of turpitude, they 
add the dangerous power of being invisible, 
of attacking in the dark, of lying in ambus- 
cade, and of performing, in regard to charac- 
ter, all the functions of Italian assassins. 

VII. 

It is in vain to pretend that falsehood and 
detraction carry with them their own punish- 
ment, for mankind are made up of nineundis- 
cerning for one discerning ; and falsehood suits 
the former as well as the latter ; while one half 
the world listen with delight to detractions of 



JOURNALISTS. 285 

the other half. Besides, to punish a lying 
and libellous journalist, requires a degree of 
public spirit and personal courage which is 
not possessed by one individual in five hun- 
dred. The chance of a calumny being for- 
gotten or unread, is preferred to the expence 
and annoyance of prosecuting the author. 

VIII. 

Nine-tenths of the slanders and falsehoods 
which appear in the public prints are so con- 
trived, as to want the precision which the 
existing law of libel requires : and hence, 
though capable of effecting the mischief 
intended, and of wounding the feelings of indi- 
viduals and destroying the peace of families, 
they escape punishment. Legislators have 
done their duty in protecting property, and 
the task ought not to be insuperable in regard 
to Character, which, to all good men, is even 
more precious than property. They ought, 
however, to protect the publication of truth on 
all subjects of real public interest, and extend 
their severities only against falsehood, and to 
truth only, when not properly an object of 
publication. 



286 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

IX. 

An honourable journalist will require no 
other power for the wholesome exercise of the 
press than the right to publish truth on sub- 
jects of public interest; and the journalist who 
craves an inquisition of private character, or a 
licence to misrepresent facts, is a false brother, 
and one who seeks to render the press useless, 
by rendering it an object of just jealousy and 
general abhorrence. 

x. 

James Perry, for thirty years the conductor 
of the long respectable Morning Chronicle, 
was a model in conduct and principle to all 
editors of newspapers. In adhering to his 
public principles as a friend of peace and 
reform, he was twice abortively prosecuted by 
the ministers of the day, for what they consi- 
dered public libels, but never for a libel on 
private character. He admitted no malicious 
notices of individuals; and the squibs, and 
wit of his paper, were confined to public and 
party relations. He oftener praised private 
men, than censured them. If they were con- 
temptible, he forebore to notice them ; and he 



JOURNALISTS. 287 

never allowed any one to be the victim of his 
reporters and understrappers. Honour and 
truth were his watchwords; and, with these, 
he raised his paper to a pinnacle of fame, 
respect, and great profit.* 

XI. 

Malignant editors assume a hundred forms : 
they libel by lamentation, by congratulation, 
by sympathy, by excess of charity, by affecta- 
tion of ignorance, by juxta-position, by blanks 



* The writer of this article himself conducted for 
thirty years the Monthly Magazine ; and, in the same 
period, published at least one thousand works on all 
branches of knowledge and subjects of contemporary 
interest. Yet, in printing on as many sheets of paper as 
ever were used by any other individual in England, he 
never once was questioned by any person whatever, or in 
any respect called upon to apologize or explain ; and his 
only rule was, to adhere to the truth, to forbear when he 
could not praise, and to confine the press to its proper 
business, — the public conduct of public men, and the ex- 
hibition of subjects of public interest and utility. A 
thousand times has he himself been the object of slander- 
ous attacks, but he suffered the knaves to smother them- 
selves in their own poison ; nevertheless, his connexion 
with the press enabled him to baffle malignity, by means 
which are not within the power of one in a million. 



288 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

and surmises, by contraries, by extolling 
other interests, by flattering vices as virtues, 
by playing the part of impartial critics, by 
excessive candour, by exaggeration, by inad- 
vertent mistakes, by false associations, by 
negatives, by artful interrogatories, by equi- 
vocations, and by mingling unmeaning truths 
with bitter falsehoods. 

XII. 

As the liberty of the press is the sheet-an- 
chor of civil liberty and public spirit in Eng- 
land, so the spirit of patriotism takes alarm at 
any proposal for its restraint ; but patriotism 
itself ceases to be respectable, if it be not well 
directed ; and it ought, in support of all that is 
really valuable in the liberty of the press, to 
consent to restrain its abuses, and not insist 
on the capricious, insulting, and heartless, 
tyranny, of irresponsible, unknown, needy, 
and unprincipled, writers, whose chief rule of 
conduct is their own interest, and acting 
stimulus, the frequent gratification of the worst 
passions. 

XIII. 

An honest journalist will not wait for the 
current of public opinion, or be influenced by 



JOURNALISTS. 289 

public prejudices in regard to any questions in 
agitation ; he will not withhold his commenda- 
tion of public men, till he has been bribed or 
influenced in their behalf; and he will not limit 
his notices of public designs to articles or 
advertisements paid for by the line. 

XIV. 

A conscientious journalist will not assist in 
promoting any public delusion, for the sake of 
vending greater numbers of his paper; but will 
manfully expose it at all temporary hazards, in 
the confidence, that, when it has passed away, 
he shall be more liberally rewarded for his 
integrity by extended public patronage. 

xv. 

An upright journalist will not join in a 
hue and cry which any party or faction may 
raise against an individual ; but will, on all 
such occasions, fairly estimate the circum- 
stances, and place them before his readers as a 
tribute to justice. 

XVI. 

An incorruptible journalist will never lend 
himself to the designs of speculators of any 



290 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

kind, whether in the funds, in provisions, or 
articles of commerce ; but will always exert 
himself to detect, expose, and thwart, the 
artifices of all such parties. 

xvn. 

A fair journalist will always take special 
care, that his reporters of trials in courts of law 
do not receive bribes from parties to insert 
garbled accounts of the proceedings, or sup- 
press trials of public interest; and that, from 
any malignity, they do not misrepresent the 
nature of the cause, and pervert the evidence. 

XVIII. 

A candid journalist will never permit the 
speeches of council, made to influence the 
jury, and often abounding jn malignant asser- 
tions and artful insinuations, to form part of 
the reports of trials, except in cases wherein 
the entire proceedings are given, with the evi- 
dence at length, and the charge of the judge. 

XIX. 

A moral journalist will never insert any 
legal proceedings which violate decency, whe- 
ther trials for crim. con., or rape, or any such 



JOURNALISTS. 291 

examinations before magistrates ; so that it 
may not be necessary to secrete a paper 
from the female or juvenile part of a family. 

xx. 

An honourable journalist will never feed 
the public appetite for calumny, by reporting 
all the idle discussions and personal disputes 
which take place in charges and examina- 
tions before magistrates. 

XXI. 

A discreet journalist will forbear to repeat 
the scandal of the day, in regard to any indi- 
vidual, except when the public welfare or 
morals are evidently interested by the expo- 
sure. The sensibility of females, and even of 
private men, in regard to public notice, ought 
always to be respected. It is death to the 
peace of such persons to be made subjects 
of public discussion. Many men seek noto- 
riety and live upon it ; but there are thousands 
of men, and tens of thousands of women, who 
would be made miserable for years by the 
public application of an epithet, really in itself 
inoffensive. 

o 



292 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

XXII. 

A judicious journalist will take special 
care that his reporters of proceedings in 
parliament, and at public meetings, do not, 
from any feelings or combinations of their 
own, garble the speeches of certain parties, 
and prefer those of greater favourites ; by 
which information becomes imperfect, the 
truth is compromised, and the parties who 
are neglected or perverted suffer insult. Give 
no report — give the whole, or abridge with 
fairness and equality. 

XX1IL 

An honourable journalist will never sell to 
the best bidder his opinions on works of art, 
on dramatic performances, and on literary 
publications ; and will never suffer the critical 
opinions in his journal to be sold by those 
who may write them ; nor will he allow 
his journal to be made a tool for the ma- 
lignity of any writer, or the means of raising 
the interests of one man over another, either 
as artist, actor, or author. This become* 
an especial duty, because it is a practice 
which is often negligently performed, open 



JOURNALISTS. 293 

to the easiest abuse, and one of the most 
flagrant evils of the ephemeral and periodical 
press. 

XXIV, 

Whenever criticism is introduced into 
journals, and it is anonymous, there is danger 
of fraud and perversion. A Review is com- 
monly the mere advertising medium of some 
publisher ; and, as such, it is made the vehicle 
for puffing off his own books, and decrying 
those of his rivals in trade. The disguises 
are artful, varied, and numerous; but the 
object is always the same, — to induce the 
public to purchase one set of literary wares, 
and not to expend their book-money in an- 
other set. Against these literary frauds there 
seems to be no check, but either not to read 
reviews, or demand the responsibility of the 
critics' names. Newspaper criticisms are 
usually more venal, and less to be relied on, 
than those of the booksellers' reviews ; but 
this is a feature of newspaper management 
susceptible of great improvement. 

XXV, 

One test of incorruptibility in an editor is 
his never making up articles as his own 



294 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

with those for which he has been paid ; and, 
by consequence, never receiving money for 
inserting articles which he ought himself to 
have written, or feels justified in taking on 
himself. 

XXVI. 

A vigilant editor should never permit his 
assistants or colleagues to receive bribes 
either for insertions or omissions ; while, — to 
protect the press, the public, and honourable 
editors, and proprietors themselves, against 
such abuses, — some special penal statute is 
requisite, for the punishment of those subor- 
dinate agents who apply to litigating parties, 
and, for a price, undertake to give any- 
desired colour to law proceedings; who often 
write paragraphs, partly true, and partly 
false, and threaten persons with their pub- 
lication, unless forbearance is purchased ; 
and who, in like manner, extort money from 
public men, actors, artists, and authors, either 
for commendation, or for omitting their threa- 
tened censures. 

XXVII. 

The only legitimate topics for exhibition 
and discussion by the public press, are, the 



JOURNALISTS. 295 

public conduct of public men, as such, — or 
affairs and concerns in which the public 
weal and public interests are affected ; and, 
in this respect, a free press is an invaluable 
instrument, and too wide a latitude of discus- 
sion cannot be enjoyed by it: but society 
would realize the poetic dreams about hell, 
if the public press became an inquisition of 
private character, and of transactions between 
man and man ; and such a system would 
create a social war, in which the best men 
would constantly be the victims of the worst. 
This strong line of demarcation should, 
therefore, be felt and acted upon by all edi- 
tors, by all moral patrons and purchasers of 
public journals, and by all juries before whom 
trials for libel take place. 

XXVIII. 

Every honest journalist should respect 
whatever is integrated with the honour and 
interests of the country, and with those prac- 
tices which harmonise with its prosperity. 
Thus, it is anti-British to assail liberty ; and 
anti-social to undermine public credit and 
commercial confidence. He is a wretch who 
eulogizes any violation of the constituent pri- 



296 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

vileges of the people ; and a miscreant, who 
ought to be flogged at a cart's tail, if he 
exults in the ruin of banking and commercial 
establishments, — and so vaunts about such 
misfortunes, as thereby to involve others in 
common ruin. 

XXIX. 

A capital fault of many editors is the 
supremacy of authority, and the infallibility 
of opinion, with which they justify whatever 
errors or weakness they may have displayed > 
hence truth is constantly baffled by their dog- 
matism, and disconcerted by their insolence. 
A braggart editor ought, therefore, to be as 
much discountenanced by judicious persons, 
as a libellous one by the virtuous. Friends 
of liberty by their profession, they are often in 
their practices greater tyrants than any ty- 
ranny which they decry, and more intolerant 
and overbearing than the inquisition itself; 
while they claim an infallibility which does 
not belong to man, the assumption of which 
renders the Pope so contemptible. 

xxx. 

The cupidity of journalists leads them 
often to indulge in slanders, and especially in 



JOURNALISTS. 297 

those in which, by some adroitness of inuendo, 
they escape the responsibility of the law. 
because slanders gratify the majority of man- 
kind, and serve as a sort of seasoning to their 
periodical banquet. Self-interest is the 
unprincipled excuse of the journalist to him- 
self and his friends; but the source of the 
crime is in the malignity or unworthy negli- 
gence of the purchasers of such journals; for 
those who admit them into their houses, and 
patronize them, are the real culprits, thus 
bribing, and, in effect, hiring a public libeller 
to scatter calumnies and pestilence. 

XXXI. 

To promote the punishment of slanderers, 
well-disposed editors of journals ought never 
to report trials for slanderous words, unless 
at the request of the slandered; for the pub- 
lication of slanders, even when the slanderer 
is convicted, adds so much to the original 
injury, that slanderers generally escape with 
impunity, merely because the slandered, in 
the choice of evils, avoids the greater in the 
re-publication in the form of a law report, of 
the slander, which malignant persons will 
not disbelieve, though the slandered may ob- 
tain the satisfaction of a verdict. This rule 



298 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

applies generally, but especially to cases of 
commercial credit, to the chastity of women, 
and to crimes which attach infamy, such 
publications being, in effect, an obstruction of 
justice, and a means of protecting criminal 
slanderers from the just vengeance of the law. 

XXXII. 

Journalists and newspaper-editors usually 
consider themselves mere public censors, or 
exposers of errors, vices, and crimes ; as 
though they felt themselves to be the worst 
men in the community, and judged it neces- 
sary to depreciate others for the purpose of 
keeping themselves in countenance: but it 
would be more worthy, and quite as useful, if 
they were frequently to play the parts of 
unbought eulogists, seeking out — and holding 
up to public example — praise worthy instances 
of living generosity, charity, and benevolence; 
as though they themselves felt no envy of 
virtue, and were capable of participating in 
its sentiments, and sympathizing with its 
glory. They ought not to leave to dramatists, 
and remote historians, the pleasing duty of 
celebrating heroic and generous deeds in the 
times of which they are the proper chroniclers. 



JOURNALISTS. 299 

XXXIII. 

Newspapers and journals are, for their 
period, what histories are for ages, and na- 
tions ; but, as they are printed for eye-witnesses 
of the transactions, and are perused by the 
actors in the events which they record, the 
observation of Walpoie, that — history is all 
a lie, should not be applicable to them ; and 
they ought to give the lie to the observation, 
by their correctness, impartiality, and discri- 
mination. 

XXXIV. 

In their reports of proceedings before ma- 
gistrates, all cautions and notices should be 
stated for the public information; and, in like 
manner, inquests before coroners should be 
reported in such manner as to be useful and 
instructive to the public. Displays of wit, or 
passion, preferences of one magistrate over 
another, or any perversions of evidence or 
misrepresentations on such subjects, render 
a paper a nuisance to the public, to the 
magistracy, and the neighbourhood. 

XXXV. 

If many editors of newspapers were half as 
anxious to perform a public-spirited duty, in 
regard to objects of utility and matters of fact, 

o 2 



300 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

as they are to enter upon political discussions, 
and display opinions on party questions, — 
newspapers would be ten times more useful 
than they are. If they were more alive to the 
power of doing good, which they really pos- 
sess, — were less of politicians, and more of 
citizens and philanthropists, they might use- 
fully direct public attention and powerful 
patronage to the wants of genius, and to its 
fruits of literature and the arts, and to projects 
of improvement, and to discoveries beneficial 
to the world, all which often languish or 
become abortive for want of such aid. 

XXXVI. 

If the sphere of provincial papers is more 
limited than those of the metropolis, and their 
labours less original, their means of doing 
good, and promoting the interests and happi- 
ness of their immediate vicinity, are greater; 
and no man in society has it in his power to 
exert more useful influence than a sensible, 
upright, and independent, printer of a pro- 
vincial paper. But, on these qualities depend 
his utility; for, if he does not combine them 
in his character and conduct, no greater 
nuisance can exist. 



JOURNALISTS. 301 

XXXVII. 

The securities of civil liberty are so essen- 
tial to the prosperity of a nation, — so conge- 
nial with the nature of man, or of the man 
who is a man, — and so intimately blended 
with that free discussion which is the soul of 
all journals,— that the journalist who is their 
enemy must either be a narrow-minded crea- 
ture, habitually averse to every generous 
emotion, the tool and sycophant of some such 
narrow souls for interested purposes, or a 
false brother, stimulated by perversity of 
character, or by some calculation in regard 
to the number of narrow souls who are likely 
to patronize and prefer such a journal. 

XXXVIII. 

As editors write for sale, and the most 
wonderful things are the most greedily sought 
after, so it is the constant and often inad- 
vertent policy of news-writers to convert 
geese into swans. Hence the most trifling 
occurrence is swelled into importance, and 
every incident unduly magnified, so that we 
seem always to live in an age of prodigies. 
Newspapers, therefore, are not merely tele- 



302 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

scopes of high power, but multiplying glasses, 
which enable distant observers to see every 
object of their notice at once increased both 
in size and number, 

xxxix. 

Every diligent editor will investigate facts 
on the spot, either with his own eyes, or by 
means of trusty reporters, and will at least 
relieve his own paper from the general stigma, 
that newspaper statements are seldom to be 
relied on. It is disgraceful to the race of 
editors that experienced men should be able 
to warn others never to believe half that they 
read in print ; while many, still more know- 
ing, warn the inexperienced never to believe 
any thing which they see printed. Censure 
could not be stronger, and, though not wholly 
true, yet there is often too much foundation 
for the remark ; hence, for the honour of their 
craft, it behoves editors to remove it by 
greater diligence and fidelity. 

XL. 

As laws are first abused, and bad prece- 
dents sanctioned only when obnoxious indi- 



JOURNALISTS. 303 

viduals are the objects, and as dogs may be 
hunted to death with impunity when they 
are called mad, — so the license of public slan- 
der on private persons takes place with suc- 
cess, and without being duly felt either by 
editors or the public, after a fire upon an 
individual has been commenced. They begin 
with pop- guns, and proceed with pistols and 
small arms, from the ambuscades of inuendoes, 
till at length the public endure an open bat- 
tery, and the parties are obliged to succumb : 
but against this insidious system, sensible 
and candid editors should always be on their 
guard, and should never forget that, to abuse 
the press by personal slander, is to compro- 
mise its useful purposes ; and they know too 
well the secret springs of all such malevo- 
lence to become parties without associating 
themselves in the turpitude. 

XLI. 

The primary consideration of every editor 
of a journal should be the character of his 
work, for on this depends its fortune and his 
own reputation, and well-being. At every 
moment of seduction, either by bribes, pro- 
mises, or persuasions, he should duly reflect 



304 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

on the greater value of purity and integrity ; 
and remember, that to sacrifice these for 
any temporary advantage, would be to barter 
his birth-right for a mess of pottage. He 
should bear it constantly in mind that, as 
editor of a public journal, the eyes of the 
public are upon him and his journal ; and that, 
as every interest and party has an opposite 
interest and party, so his improper support 
of one will be duly felt and resented by 
the other, and his character, and that of his 
journal, be thereby impeached. 

XLII. 

An intelligent editor will supersede the 
necessity of those puffs which disgrace the 
press, and which throw uncertainty on all 
that is read in the public journals. What- 
ever or whoever possesses merit in the useful 
or elegant arts, he will disinterestedly and 
zealously bring under public notice ; and 
the gratitude of the parties will be his more 
certain reward, than the trifles received for 
paid paragraphs. In such services, public- 
spirited editors would be public benefactors, 
and be so considered in their age. 



JOURNALISTS. 305 

XLIII. 

Many editors conceive their whole duty to 
consist in assembling and translating from 
foreign journals, and in arranging the parlia- 
mentary debates, law proceedings, and vul- 
gar incidents of the day, as brought in by 
their reporters, or cut out of other news- 
papers ; but these are mere common-place 
duties, which may be performed by any 
ordinary person, and the true duties lie in a 
comprehensive survey of the active world, 
in an unwearied attention to the passing 
labours of merit and genius in every walk of 
human pursuits, and in the devotion of the 
columns and pages of the Journal to whatever 
is useful, or tends to the advancement 
and advantage of society. 

XLIV. 

Many editors fall into the errors of kings 
and governments, and seem to consider the 
public as their property or slaves, and not 
themselves as mere instruments of public 
utility. Hence their dictatorial style and 
their dogmatical opinions on many subjects, 
insomuch that few facts can be dispassion- 
ately read, and few statements entirely re- 
lied on. 



306 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

They often bounce, and swagger, and bully, 
mistaking assertion for argument, and their 
dictum for truth ; while the non-editorial world 
seem, in their eyes, to be doomed " merely to 
peep about them for dishonourable graves." 

XLV. 

Editors of journals generally should con- 
stantly consider the importance of their 
social position, and act that manly and in- 
telligent part to which they are qualified to 
give effect by their duties. They ought, 
above all things, to endeavour to be useful ; 
and, in performing the interesting task of re- 
cording passing events, they should at the 
same time give a benevolent direction to men's 
minds and pursuits. They should endeavour 
to make the press respectable and respected, 
for their power is immense, and, perhaps, not 
inferior to that of state and church combined. 
The abuse of such power by some should not 
deter others from doing their duty, by the 
fear that their solitary integrity may be 
useless ; but every one should set an example to 
his co labourers of love of truth, of probity 
of conduct, of intellectual activity, of un- 
wearied public spirit, and of patriotism in 
the sense with which it is combined with the 
interests and happiness of their country. 



GOLDEN RULES FOR BANKERS 



The banking system is the foundation of the 
wealth of Britain : it constitutes the financial 
strength of the government, and sustains the 
industry and prosperity of the people. 

IT. 

It is the peculiar feature of the banking 
system of England, that its banks are banks 
of deposit, or reservoirs of the floating money 
of the population ; insomuch that all money is 
assembled in them, and available by them for 
direction and appropriation by whomsoever 
it is most wanted, and who is creditable for 
its punctual repayment. 

in. 

It is another feature of country bankers, 
that, to augment their capital and resources, 
they are enabled to issue small notes as cash 



308 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

on the credit of their establishments ; and this 
system affords them additional means of sus- 
taining the industry and prosperity of their 
respective neighbourhoods. 

IV. 

Other European nations possess neither of 
these advantages ; and they never can possess 
them, owing to the capricious and uncertain 
character of their governments, and the con- 
sequent want of confidence and security on the 
part of the people. 

v. 

In England, the banking system has grown 
by slow degrees till it has engrafted itself on 
the habits, prejudices, and practices, of the 
entire population; and credit, with a banking- 
house, establishes a man in society, and facili- 
tates his enterprizes in all concerns of life. 



VI. 

In France, and other countries, no such 
point d'appui of credit and character can be 
enjoyed : hence capital is limited to actual 
property, credit is low, and enterprize is 



BANKERS. 309 

impracticable. The public revenues and the 
financial resources of the government are 
proportionately low and inefficient. 

VII. 

A fixed rate of interest is the basis of the 
banking system ; and all the concerns of 
bankers and their clients would be involved in 
confusion, if the interest of money was varia- 
ble and unfixed by law. An unsettled rate of 
interest is a chief cause of the impracticability 
of carrying on a banking system on the Con- 
tinent with the co-operation of the whole 
population, as is done in England from the 
equality and certainty of all transactions. 

VIII. 

In England, credit is the prime criterion, and 
it cannot be commuted for a high rate of inter- 
est : hence credit is studied bv all men who 

* %/ 

would be prosperous, and money can be raised 
on commercial securities on terms which the 
profits of trade will justify, while the high 
rates of interest in foreign countries, taken as 
a substitute for credit, destroy credit by the 
ruin of borrowers. 



3J0 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

IX. 

Interest can only be allowed to vary when 
the securities are defined and exactly equiva- 
lent, as on government securities, and on 
estates of ascertained income ; but ruin must 
attend borrowers on fluctuating interest, in all 
cases wherein the securities vary in quality or 
estimation, as in Bills of Exchange, and the 
general run of commercial securities. 

x. 

The fixation of interest constitutes the sta- 
bility of trade, and the maximum ought never 
to exceed what trade can afford to pay, while 
real securities will find a lower level. The 
law ought to fix a maximum, and not a mini- 
mum ; and a maximum is justified, because 
money is a mere conventional article, and it 
ought to be subject to conventional law, in 
subservience to the general benefit. 

XI. 

As credit constitutes the wealth of bankers, 
they ought at all times to respect public 
opinion. They have the command of indefi- 
nite funds in trust from the public, and they 



BANKERS. 311 

require public confidence in the circulation of 
their notes. The eye of the public is there- 
fore upon them, and their chief luxury must be 
the power which money confers, and the pos- 
session of money. They may be enabled by 
their actual profits to display large and expen- 
sive establishments, but such things are not 
essential to their credit as bankers. 

XII- 

The most successful and wealthy bankers 
have, in all ages, been those of the smallest 
personal expenditure. Nothing is considered 
at hazard in such hands, and public confi- 
dence is the wealth of bankers, if a passion 
for personal indulgence and expenditure 
exists, and can be afforded, the parties should 
abandon the occupation of bankers. 

XIII. 

In every pursuit, certain self-denials are 
necessary : a clergyman must not keep a mis- 
tress, a judge must not get drunk, a magis- 
trate must avoid profligacy, and a banker 
must never be seen in a brothel or a gaming- 
house. Many a solid establishment has been 
brought to the verge of bankruptcy by its 



312 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

being reported that a junior partner had had 
a run of ill-luck or good-luck at play, or had 
lost or gained large sums by gambling in the 
public funds. 

XIV. 

The valuable banker is he who sets an 
example of moderation in his own household ; 
who studies the characters and pursuits of his 
connexions ; who patronizes prudence, indus- 
try, probity, and well-directed enterprize ; who 
hazards something when the prospects of 
virtue are at stake ; who hazards nothing in 
support of audacious folly and extravagance ; 
who is content with the legal interest afforded 
by creditable private securities ; and who doe* 
not grasp at inordinate wealth by illusory spe- 
culations of his own, even though the chances 
of success may be as 100 to 1. 

xv. 

The country banker who employs the capi- 
tal of which he is the focus and depository, fn 
sustaining the private industry and valuable 
enterprizes of his vicinity ; who discriminates 
character with reference to trading qualities, 
and without reference to political or religious 



BANKERS. 313 

i 

parties ; who returns the capital into the vici- 
nity, as the husbandman does his produce for 
manure ; and who refrains from distant spe- 
culations in the public funds ; is a public 
benefactor, and a patriot in the best sense of 
j the word. 

XVI. 

The worthless and mischievous banker is 
; the man of capricious temper, who deludes one 
I day with promises, and withdraws his good 
! will before plans are matured which he has 
encouraged ; who envies the prosperity of 
| others ; who, confounding his balances with 
his gains, considers the possession of wealth 
as a title for pride ; w T ho makes use of it to dis- 
play his power; who employs it in distant secu- 
rities, rather than in performing kind actions 
among his neighbours ; or who engages in 
speculations in the necessaries of life for the 
purpose of increasing his gains. 

XVII. 

In runs upon banks, it is the bounden duty 
of bankers to sustain one another in spite of 
their general jealousies, and local and tempo- 
rary bickerings. The fate of the weakest to- 
day may be that of the strongest to-morrow, 



314 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

for it is impracticable to realize all dead and 
remote securities. The shock created by the 
failure of a weak rival is not recovered for a 
considerable time ; while the prosperity of all 
banks depends on the weather-cock of public 
opinion. An ungenerous conduct in a moment 
of alarm is always resented too by the public, 
and retaliated on other occasions. 

XVIII. 

The failure of creditable and solvent coun- 
try banks might be rendered impracticable, if 
they were to make their notes payable either in 
London, or, the country ; and if, in London, 
there existed one general depot for paying 
them, which might operate in averaging the 
resources of country banks, just as they them- 
selves operate in regard to the traders in their 
own vicinity ; that is, if in London there ex- 
isted, with reference to small notes, one focus 
of all the country banks, in which each should 
lodge real securities for occasional advances 
from the common stock of currency. 



XIX. 

It is the vast accumulations of capital, 
more or less in 1000 banks, which, when 
poured forth by the seductive advantages of a 
small per centage and government security, 



BANKERS. 315 

enables the minister of England to raise 
annual loans of twenty or thirty millions by 
various competition, to the astonishment of 
other nations ; while, as the whole returns into 
immediate circulation, the operation is capable 
of being repeated an indefinite number of 
times, without sensible effect on the elasticity 
and energy of the system. 

xx. 

As long as the banking system continues, 
as long as bankers are enabled by their 
balances and their confidence to discount 
commercial securities at not more than five 
per cent., England will continue what it has 
been during the last half century ; but, when- 
ever the banking system is destroyed by want 
of general confidence, and whenever commer- 
cial bills and securities cease to be discounta- 
ble at a rate of interest which accords with 
the profits of trade, then the revenue of Eng- 
land will fail, her social improvements will be 
arrested, and she will sink to the level of other 
nations, Gr by acceleration even below them. 

XXI. 

The minister or the economist, who, igno- 
rant of the practical operation of the banking 



•316 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

system, is ignorant of the multiplication of 
wealth by means of credit, is unfit to influence 
the fortunes of such a country as England ; 
and, whenever it is the fate of the English 
people to have their public fortunes in such 
incapable or unprincipled hands, universal 
misery, general insolvency, and social disor- 
ganization, must be the consequence. 

XXII. 

As long as a national debt calls for an 
annual interest of twenty or thirty millions, 
and as the public exchequer finds it necessary 
to issue vast amounts of accommodation-bills, 
an artificial credit and circulation must sub- 
sist in British society, and commercial credit 
becomes in consequence the foundation of 
public credit. The former cannot continue 
to exist without the latter, because a great 
revenue cannot be raised without correspond- 
ing circulation, and great circulation depends 
on banking and commercial credit. 

XXIII. 

Commercial credit multiplies currency 
ten-fold, in its practical effect; and the same 
amount of currency may maintain an effectual 
commercial currency of ten times the amount. 



BANKERS. 317 

Hence wealth is as credit, and, whenever 
credit is destroyed, currency rises propor- 
tionately in value, and prospective or time 
engagements in nominal wealth, inevitably 
ruin ail by the change of value. Practically 
considered, a currency of forty millions may 
maintain a commercial credit of four hundred 
millions; but if the latter, owing to the 
ignorance or imbecility of the government, is 
destroyed, then all praspective engagements 
fall from 20s. to 2s. in the pound; and he 
who pays in a higher ratio must soon become 
insolvent. 

XXIV. 

In fine, it is the banking system, and its 
able and public-spirited practice, which make 
Britain what it is, in trade, enterprise, and 
prosperity, and, by contrast, the continental 
nations what they are : it is the useful pride 
which every Englishman feels, that he has a 
good balance and good credit at his banker's, 
opposed to the useless pride which the inhabi- 
tants of the Continent feel, that they have a 
few rouleaux locked up in their bureau. This 
small difference of social practice constitutes 
the Samson's hair of England, and is the 
fulcrum of her power, and the talisman of 
her financial strength. 



GOLDEN RULES FOR YOUNG SHOP- 
KEEPERS. 



i. 
Choose a good and commanding situation, 
even at a higher rate or premium; for no 
money is so well laid out as for situation, 
providing good use be made of it. 

ii. 

Take your shop-door off the hinges at seven 
o'clock every morning, that no obstruction 
may be opposed to your customers. 

in. 

Clean and set out your windows before 
seven o'clock; and do this with your own 
hands, that you may expose for sale the arti- 
cles which are most saleable, and which you 
most want to sell. 



IV. 

Sweep before your house; and, if required, 
open a footway from the opposite side of the 



YOUNG SHOPKEEPERS. 319 

street, that passengers may think of you 
while crossing, and that all your neighbours 
may be sensible of your diligence. 

v. 

Wear an apron, if such be the custom of 
your business, and consider it as a badge of 
distinction, which will procure you respect 
and credit. 

VI. 

Apply your first return of ready money to 
pay debts before they are due, and give such 
transactions suitable emphasis by claiming 
discount. 

VII. 

Always be found at home, and in some way 
employed ; and remember that your meddling 
neighbours have their eyes upon you, and are 
constantly gauging you by your appearance. 

vm. 

Re-weigh and re-measure all your stock, 
rather than let it be supposed you have nothing 
to do. 

IX. 

Keep some article cheap, that you may 
draw customers and enlarge your intercourse. 



320 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

X. 

Keep up the exact quality or flavour of 
all articles which you find are approved of by 
your customers ; and by this means you will 
enjoy their preference. 

XI. 

Buy for ready-money as often as you have 
any to spare ; and when you take credit, pay- 
to a day, and unasked. 

XII. 

No advantage will ever arise to you from 
any ostentatious display of expenditure. 

XIII. 

Beware of the odds and ends of a stock, of 
remnants, of spoiled goods, and of waste ; 
for it is in such things that your profits lie. 

XIV. 

In serving your customers be firm and 
obliging, and never lose your temper, — for 
nothing is got by it. 

XV. 

Always be seen at church or chapel on 
Sunday ; never at a gaming-table ; and sel- 
dom at theatres or at places of amusement. 



YOUNG SHOPKEEPERS. 321 

XVI. 

Prefer a prudent and discreet to a rich 
and showy wife. 

XVII. 

Spend your evenings by your own fire-side, 
and shun a public-house or a sottish club as 
you would a bad debt. 

XVIII. 

Subscribe with your neighbours to a book- 
club, and improve your mind, that you may 
be qualified to use your future affluence with 
credit to yourself, and advantage to the 
public. 

XIX. 

Take stock every year, estimate your profits, 
and do not spend above one-fourth. 

xx. 

Avoid the common folly of expending your 
precious capital upon a costly architectural 
front ; such things operate on the world like 
paint on a woman's cheek, — repelling be- 
holders instead of attracting them. 

XXI. 

Every pound wasted by a young trades- 
man is two pounds lost at the end of three 



822 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

years, and two hundred and fifty-six pounds 
at the end of twenty -four years. 

XXII. 

The nobility of trade generally ends with 
the second generation. A thrifty and perse- 
vering man falls into a line of business by 
which he accumulates a large fortune, pre- 
serving through life, the habits, manners, and 
connexions, of his trade ; but his children, 
brought up with expectations of enjoying his 
property, understand only the arts of spend- 
ing. Hence, when deprived of fortune, with- 
out industry or resources, they die in beg- 
gary, leaving a third generation to the same 
chances of life as those with which their grand- 
father began his career fourscore years before. 

XXIII. 

To avoid being robbed and ruined by 
apprentices and assistants, never allow them 
to go from home in the evening; and the 
restriction will prove equally useful to master 
and servant. 

XXIV. 

Remember that prudent purchasers shun 
the shop of an extravagant and ostentatious 



YOUNG SHOPKEEPERS. 323 

trader; for they justly consider that, if they 
deal with him, they must contribute to his 
follies and expences. 

xxv. 

Let these be your rules till you have rea- 
lized your stock, and till you can take dis- 
count for prompt payment on all purchases ; 
and you may then indulge in any degree 
which your habits and sense of prudence 
suggest. 



p2 



GOLDEN RULES FOR PARISH PRIESTS. 



i. 

The institution of parochial instructors of 
the people in the duties of morality, and in the 
doctrines of revelation, is so eminently wise 
and beneficial, that it may be adduced as col- 
lateral evidence of the superior origin of that 
religion by which it was formed and or- 
ganized. 

ii. 

It is an establishment so essential to a moral 
and spiritual influence over the people, and it 
gives so permanent and operative an effect 
to vital religion, that parish priests, and those 
authorities which appoint and superintend 
them, become important and necessary 
branches of well-organized society, and con- 
stitute a living church. 

in. 

Every parish priest is therefore an integral 
branch of the spiritual government of society; 



PARISH PRIESTS. 325 

hence arises the evangelical character of the 
priesthood ; hence the respect which it claims 
among Christians; and hence all the obliga- 
tions of personal duty and example in its 
members. 

IV. 

The parish priest is bound by the nature of 
his functions, and the object of his office, to 
reside among the people whom it is his duty to 
instruct by his precept and conduct; and 
whom it should be his constant labour to pre- 
pare for the immortality announced in the 
gospel. 



He is the moral guardian of his flock, and 
consequently bound to preserve them in unity, 
in mutual love, and in good offices one towards 
another. He should be their impartial umpire 
in matters of dispute, should allay their violent 
and selfish passions, and preserve the social 
affections among kindred. 

VI. 

He should constantly assist and advise the 
overseers of the poor in the discharge of their 



326 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

delicate and interesting duties ; and should 
draw strong distinctions between the virtuous 
and the vicious poor, taking care to reclaim 
the latter by gentle means, by forbearance and 
charity, and by extending the rewards of 
virtue to such of them as afford indications of 
amendment. 

VII. 

As ignorance is the parent of vice, as 
knowledge is the parent of civilization, and as 
the unlettered can have little conception of the 
nature of moral obligation, or of the evidences 
and doctrines of that gospel which they are 
unable to peruse, it is his duty to establish 
and maintain, by his influence and example, 
all institutions which have for their object the 
decent education of the children of the poor. 

VIII. 

Whatever be his income, he should live 
within it, and become a pattern of modera- 
tion, temperance, and contentment, to those 
who are expected to curb their own passions by 
his example, and who will be likely to respect 
his precepts so far only as their efficacy is 
demonstrated by their influence on his own 
conduct. 



PARISH PRIESTS. 327 

IX. 

He should know enough of the art of medi- 
cine to be able to administer relief in cases 
which do not admit of delay ; and he should be 
provided with a small stock of simple galeni- 
cals, the effect of which, in particular dis- 
orders, may have been well ascertained. 

x. 

He should apply his superior education to 
remove vulgar errors and superstition of all 
kinds ; he should promote intellectual improve- 
ment among those who desire it ; he should 
lend books, and give advice in the choice of 
others; he should also recommend the adop- 
tion of all improvements in the arts of life, 
which are consequent on the labours of men of 
science. 

XI. 

He should bear with charity the occasional 
heresies, or variances of opinion, which, ow- 
ing to the freedom of thought, may honestly 
and conscientiously be cherished by any of his 
parishioners. If they cannot be corrected by 
gentle means, they will be confirmed in their 
errors, if violence or denunciation be resorted 



328 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

to; and, above all things, he should be fobear- 
ing towards sectaries and sceptics, and 
tolerant towards enthusiasts and visionaries. 

XII. 

He should be punctual in the hours of 
divine service, and should perform all the 
rites of religion with devotional feeling and 
unvarying solemnity. Nothing in his conduct 
should be indifferent ; and even at a feast he 
should remember that he is looked upon as the 
minister of a holy religion ; and that his levities 
or sensualities will sanction greater vices in 
those who reverence his character, and quote 
him as their example. 

XIII. 

He will find little difficulty in collecting his 
dues and tythes, if he has succeeded in im- 
pressing his parishioners with a well-founded 
respect for his office and personal character ; 
but, in all cases of dispute, he should convince 
them before he attempts to control them, and 
appeal to arbitration rather than to law. 

XIV. 

He should render himself the organ of the 
benevolence of his parishioners, by recom- 



PARISH PRIESTS, 329 

mending frequent collections for particular 
objects of compassion, and by superintending 
their distribution. He should, in performing 
this duty, increase the comfort and the number 
of independent cottagers ; encourage habits of 
cleanliness, sobriety, and industry; create pro- 
visions for the sick and aged; and signalize 
industry and virtue in the humblest stations, 
even after death. 

xv. 

He should guard himself against becoming 
the tool of those in power, or the flatterer of 
persons of rank, merely as such; and be 
modest and reserved in his advances to them, 
lest he be considered as a hunter after prefer- 
ment, thereby frustrating his just ambition, 
exposing himself to ridicule, and degrading 
the religion of self-denial and humility. 

XVI. 

He should never interfere in the political 
parties of the state ; and in elections, or local 
questions of a mere political tendency, he 
should avoid committing the infallibility of his 
sacred character, by joining in the errors and 
passionate ebullitions of politicians. He 
ought in such matters to withhold his inter- 



330 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

ference ; and he ought never to become a party, 
except when evident virtue is opposed to, or 
oppressed by notorious vice. 

XVII. 

His station, employment, and independent 
provision, render him an object of estimation 
among other classes of society, and qualify him 
to pass through life with respect, usefulness, 
and happiness ; and there is no social condition 
which unites so much placid enjoyment, and 
so many objects for the gratification of those 
practices which lead to self-satisfaction, with 
so permanent a prospect of competency and 
comfort, and so high a probability of preserv- 
ing health, and attaining long life and felicity, 
as that of a conscientious and exemplary 
parish-priest. 



GOLDEN RULES FOR INSTRUCTORS 
OF YOUTH. 



As the character of every human being is 
formed by education, and it is the difference 
of early instruction which constitutes the 
difference in the characters of different na- 
tions, and of the grades of the same nation, 
so the heaviest responsibility lies on all who 
are concerned in the scholastic instruction 
and formation of the character of each rising 

generation. 

ii. 

The primary habits are formed in the nur- 
sery, or at the parental fire- side, but the 
improvement and correction of these, and 
the storing of the mind with arts, knowledge, 
and materials for thinking, are the duties of 
the school-master and school-mistress. 

in. 
Diligent directors of schools will, how- 
ever, not limit their care to bodily arts and 



332 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

lessons of books, but will pay every possible 
attention to the morals, passions, and perso- 
nal habits, of their pupils. Cleanliness, neat- 
ness, courteous demeanour, love of truth, 
and honesty, may be enforced, while awk- 
ward habits, absurd tricks, malignant actions, 
and dirty practices, may be corrected in every 
seminary from the highest to the lowest, by 
system, and moderate vigilance. 

IV. 

No greater absurdity exists than to main- 
tain that a teacher, who, in order to live, is 
obliged to take charge of fifty or a hundred 
children, should attend to the minutiae of 
their characters and behaviour, especially as 
teachers themselves are required to possess 
certain scholastic qualifications, and univer- 
sal powers and perfection of character apper- 
tain not more to them than to other human 
beings. Till schools can afford to maintain 
professors of morals, teachers of arts and 
sciences can effect nothing beyond the en- 
forcement of general rules of conduct ; though 
these ought in every school to be well studied, 
and strictly enforced. 



INSTRUCTORS OF YOUTH. 333 

V. 

Whatever theorists and visionaries may 
! assert in regard to equality of mental powers, 
and indifference to perfection, every teacher 
j of youth soon discovers that nature creates 
as great a variety of capabilities as of struc- 
ture of body and features of countenance ; 
that one pupil is rapid in committing to 
memory, and another slow ; that one is adroit 
in the use of his hands, and another awk- 
ward; and that one has powers of fancy, 
while another is logical or stupid ; and, by 
consequence, that each excels in the pursuit 
corresponding with his powers, and fails in 
others. One in ten may, perhaps, be found 
to possess a general flexibility of powers. 

VI. 

With this variety of character no insti- 
tutions are more unhappily constituted than 
the old grammar-schools, where, without the 
liberty of discrimination, boys of every 
variety of powers are obliged, under the 
discipline of the rod, to proceed through a 
uniform course of Latin and Greek. It suc- 
ceeds with one in four; but in the other three 
cases, it stultifies, and creates a hatred of 



334 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

books and learning through life ; while it 
deprives other arts and sciences of students, 
who might have excelled in them. At the 
revival of learning, when all knowledge was 
confined to Latin and Greek authors, when 
the service of the church was performed in 
Latin, and when all books were written in 
Latin, such a course of education was not 
only not irrational, but necessary ; it is, there- 
fore, an unhappy condition of human affairs 
that it should be persevered in for the sake 
of salaries and endowments, when it is no 
longer either rational or necessary. To call 
such schools free, is a libel on all the best 
senses of that expressive adjective. 

VII. 

Every well-constituted seminary ought to 
present a variety of studies to the pupils, 
with capabilities of conferring perfect know- 
ledge in those which are adopted. The 
power of reading well, and with an emphasis 
which implies a consciousness of the sense, 
ought to be attained by every human being. 
But to acquire this art, those books should 
be used which children are likely to under- 
stand. They can never read with propriety 



INSTRUCTORS OF YOUTH. 



335 



of emphasis any books above their age and 
knowledge. Nothing, therefore, can be more 
absurd than to employ young children to read 
in such books as the Bible or Enfield's Speaker, 
or any books which treat of abstractions.— 
Pelham's London Primer, Mayor's Spelling- 
book, Blair's Reading Exercises, Pelham's 
Mother's Catechism, Aikin's Selection of Ju- 
venile Poetry, and Barrow's School Bible, 
are indisputably the best books for the earliest 
age ; and they are strictly compiled on the 
principle that children should not be required 
to read what they are not likely to be able to 
understand. 

VIII. 

After children are able to read the above- 
named books with facility, they may have 
others put into their hands, which combine 
knowledge with exercise. They may read 
for amusement in after-life, but in youth the 
acquirement of facts of every kind is of the 
first consequence. The Book of English 
Trades, Goldsmith's Account of the Wonders 
of the United Kingdom, Clarke's Wonders 
of the World, Robinson's Abridgment of 
^lume and Smollett's History of England, 



336 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

Goldsmith's Popular Geography, Blair's Class- 
book, Watkins' Scripture Biography, Clarke's 
Wonders of the Heavens, Robinson's Ancient 
History, and his Modern History, Prior's 
Vovages Round the World, his Universal 
Traveller, Mavor's British Nepos. his Plu- 
tarch, and his Natural History, are books 
which severally afford superior exercises in 
reading ; but, at the same time, they serve as 
efficient means of conveying to young minds 
a body of invaluable knowledge. They are 
perfect tools of early tuition, and their 
total cost of five guineas should be distributed 
over the seven years of education from seven 
to fourteen, in which period the whole may 
be read twice, as progressive lessons. 

IX. 

Every part of the business of a school 
should be pursued with system. Classes in 
various studies and books should be formed, 
and the pupils led to expect consistency and 
perseverance. The clock should be the signal 
for varying their daily pursuits, and parti- 
cular days of the week appropriated to spe- 
cial objects. Whatever applies to powers 
of memory, should be done in the morning. 
Writing should be performed in the middle 



INSTRUCTORS OF YOUTH. 337 

of the day, when the muscles are more flexi- 
ble, and the temperature highest. Except so 
far as knowledge may be incidentally ac- 
quired by the practice of reading, every study 
should be pursued by exercise. Nothing is 
learnt either by child or adult, except by 
working at the subject with the head or 
hands. Thus, languages are only to be ac- 
quired by translating out of and into the 
language. Writing and drawing, only by 
imitating good copies, and constant practice. 
Arithmetic, by working examples. Geogra- 
phy, by filling up Goldsmith's blank maps, 
and answering the questions in his two gram- 
mars. History, by answering the questions 
on Robinson's grammar, and his other school 
histories; and just so with other subjects — 
all must be studied by exercises systemati- 
cally pursued, and these exercises are alone 
afforded by the Interrogative System. 

x. 

The interrogative system is a means of 
exercising young persons on many subjects, 
in the study of which, previously to its intro- 
duction, there existed no means of exercise. 
The only species of working, of which the 



8-38 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

subjects are susceptible, is the form of ques- 
tions, which, by this system, the student is 
required to answer himself, by referring to 
the elementary book on which the questions 
are constructed. These questions, to serve 
as exercises, are, of course, not in the order 
of the text of the elementary book, but are 
dodgingly arranged, the first having a limited 
range, and the latter ones embracing the 
entire book. They are printed in quarto on 
writing-paper, with spaces between each 
question for entering the answer ; and, of 
course, the finding of the answer is an exer- 
tion of the mind, the framing it an exercise 
of composition, the writing of it on a slate 
an exercise in orthography, and the entering 
it neatly in the book an exercise of running- 
hand. The answering of five hundred ques- 
tions on each subject of study necessarily 
involves a perfect knowledge of the subject, 
while, for the facility of the teacher, every set 
of questions is provided with a key of refer- 
ence for his or her own use. 

XI. 

In accordance with this system, questions 
have been framed on many standard books; 



INSTRUCTORS OF YOUTH. 339 

and, in other cases, wherein no standard books 
existed on a subject, superior elementary 
books have been published. Thus the system 
has provided 500 questions on the Old and 
New Testaments, on the Eton Grammar, on 
Murray's Grammar, on Irving's Elements of 
Composition, on Blackstone's Commentaries 
&c. &c. ; but, besides these, it has been 
expressly provided with Goldsmith's two 
Grammars of Geography, with Blair's Univer- 
sal Preceptor, Robinson's Grammar of History, 
Squire's Grammar of Astronomy, Blair's 
English Grammar, the Universal Catechist, 
Johnstone's Grammar of Classical Knowledge, 
Blair's Grammar of Natural Philosophy, &c« 
&c. ; and, as all these books and studies may, 
by the use of the several keys, be introduced 
into all kinds of schools, they may be taught in 
every course of education without other charge 
than that of the books.* 

* As the writer of these paragraphs is himself the 
inventor and introducer of the practical system which he 
here recommends, he relies on the candour and just feel- 
ing of his readers that his recommendation of it to the 
instructors of British youth will be solely ascribed to his 
sincere conviction of its undeniable utility and import- 
ance, founded on an unparalleled circulation of the 

Q 



340 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY, 

XII. 

As correct book keeping, and the practical 
means of periodically balancing losses and 
gains, expenses and income, is a source of 
wealth and ease of mind to all men, so it 
ought to be a regular and systematic branch 
of education for all classes, whether the young 
nobleman or wealthy heir, whose security 
requires this knowledge, or the young trades- 
man, whose success may depend on his 
expertness in so necessary an art. 



books during the last twenty-five years, on the testimony 
of hundreds of heads of schools of both sexes, and on the 
reasonableness of the principle on which the Interrogative 
System is founded. He has seen with satisfaction the 
systems of Dr. Bell and Mr. Lancaster generally applied 
to the education of the poor in the first elements of know- 
ledge, which, without such means, they never could have 
acquired; and he has, in the mean time, enjoyed the 
silent satisfaction of seeing his own system working its 
way into all those seminaries in which liberal studies are 
pursued by the middling and wealthy classes. As the 
design developed itself by degrees with the publication of 
the books, he scarcely ventured to dignify it with the 
name of system, till he had by twenty years' exertion 
extended the principle to nearly every subject, and to 
his own and other elementary books. 



INSTRUCTORS OF YOUTH. 341 

XIII. 

Every youth should study, if possible, some 
other language besides his own. Many rea- 
sons plead in favour of Latin ; but, next to 
this, the French language possesses imposing 
claims as the living language of the civilized 
world, besides being the Norman basis of our 
own tongue. In teaching language and arith- 
metic, two reforms are demanded by reason ; 
one, to begin with the indeclinable parts of 
speech, and become perfect in them before 
proceeding to the inflections, which is the sys- 
tem of the books of Bossut ; and the other, is 
to proceed through homogeneous numbers, or 
vulgar and decimal fractions, before the pupil 
enters on mixed numbers. Practical geo- 
metry, and the use of a scale and compasses, 
should constitute every third lesson of the 
arithmetical master in the education of both 
sexes. It will assist in drawing, writing, 
geography, and be useful through life. 



xiv. 

There is no other method of enforcing 
attention but the act of the will, or the obliga- 
tion of necessity. Hence emulation and 
punishment are the stimuli of education. It 



342 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

must be the anxious desire of every instructor 
to excite the one, and avoid the other as long 
as possible, for a first punishment leads to the 
necessity of a second, and this to ignominy, 
indifference, contempt, and ruin. The skill 
of a tutor, in exciting and keeping up emula- 
tion, constitutes the perfection of his art. To 
arouse phlegmatic and sulky tempers is. 
nevertheless, difficult, if not wholly imprac- 
ticable. Habitual appeals to their dormant 
and perverse feelings are, perhaps, the only 
means, and an affectation of not observing 
their unhappy characteristics. Beyond the 
possibility of cavil, the best, most systematic, 
and most practical, mode of exciting habitual 
and general emulation, are Blair's School 
Registers for both sexes. Their use will, in 
due time, draw out even the obstinate, har- 
dened, and sulky. 

xv. 

It has been fashionable to abuse logic, 
because logic was abused by pedantry. But 
this art, as teaching the tools and terms of 
ratiocination, ought not to be wholly neglected 
in the education of boys. It is true it does 
not itself create reason, but it disciplines 
reason, and it confers practical utility on the 



INSTRUCTORS OF YOUTH. 343 

study of geometry and algebra, which are to 
be regarded as mere exercises of the reasoning 
powers and abstract applications of practical 
logic. In preparing boys for Universities, it 
is necessary to use the books respectively 
adopted in them, because, by usage, certain 
authors become in them the standard authori- 
ties of each science, and the examinations for 
degrees refer even less to the science itself, 
than to its exhibition by those writers. 

XVI. 

For knowledge of the social world, and 
human character, no book is at once so at- 
tractive and instructive as Esop's Fables ; but 
the language of Croxall is quaint and obsolete, 
while there is no better edition. For polite- 
ness, manners, and personal character, no 
books are superior to Gregory's Chesterfield, 
and Chapone's Letters. The accomplishment 
of dancing ought to be taught to boys as well 
as girls, both as a wholesome and graceful 
exercise, and an introduction to society. Nor 
ought music to be neglected as a means of 
innocently and agreeably filling up the leisure 
hours of both sexes. 



344 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

XVII. 

Extemporaneous eloquence, so necessary to 
boys in their passage through life, might be 
taught in all schools, not by learning speeches 
and reciting them, but by delivering simple 
sentences in their own language, reciting 
fables, &c. from once reading, and proceeding 
step by step, just as other things are acquired. 
In two or three years, boys between twelve 
and fifteen might, by the lessons of one after- 
noon in every week, be enabled to deliver 
themselves on any complicated subject within 
their sphere of information. Nothing would 
be more easily accomplished, and nothing 
more useful. 

XVIII. 

Girls ought to be as well grounded in arith- 
metic as boys. No exercise tends so much to 
draw out the reasoning powers. Plain, useful, 
needle-work, should also be practised by them ; 
and it would be an admirable system if two 
of them by turns were in every female board- 
ing-school to assist in the domestic manage- 
ment of the house for a week. 

XIX. 

Wherever opportunities offer, boys ought to 
have a small plot of ground assigned them to 



INSTRUCTORS OF YOUTH. 345 

dig, plant, and cultivate. It would be healthy 
amusement, and practically instructive on 
many useful subjects which cannot be taught 
in books. Every boy ought also to be drilled 
in the manual exercise, and taught to ride and 
swim, as useful and healthy gymnastics. 

xx. 

The faults of treatises and systems of edu- 
cation are their impracticable fancies. The 
authors, chiefly maiden ladies, forget that, in 
country places, the majority of boys and girls 
are to be taught for the miserable pittance of 
sixpence per week, and that a shilling implies 
gentility : hence schools must admit at least 
half a hundred children to enable the teacher 
to subsist. Their theories and contrivances 
may aid the unhappy children condemned to 
private education; but the conductors of 
schools, in which ninety-nine hundredths of 
the rising generation are educated, have no 
leisure to turn aside from general systems, to 
which all tempers and capacities must yield. 
The formation of character consequently de- 
pends nine times in ten entirely on the exam- 
ple of parents, and the precepts and practices 
of the father or mother. 



846 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

XXI. 

Teachers are generally charged with pedan- 
try, and it cannot well be otherwise. Scholas- 
tic subjects are the business of their lives ; and 
their demeanour, among their scholars, is 
necessarily formal. Habit begets a didactic 
manner of conversing, as well as a certain air 
of authority. The world are used to it, and 
the world expect it. A facetious school- master 
is as little in true character as a facetious 
judge. Nevertheless, it is the duty of the 
school-master, as far as possible, to leave the 
manners of the school in the school; and, in 
society, display the results of knowledge in 
the ease, grace, and agreeableness, of the 
accomplished gentleman. School-mistresses 
are frequently the most accomplished women 
to be met with in society. 



THE AUTHOR'S 

REASONS FOR NOT EATING ANIMAL 

FOOD. 



I. 

Because, being mortal himself, and holding 
his life on the same uncertain and precarious 
tenure as all other sensitive beings, he does not 
feel himself justified, by any alleged superi- 
ority, or inequality of condition, in destroying 
the vital enjoyment of any other mortal, except 
in the necessary defence of his own life. 

ii. 

Because the desire of life is so paramount, 
and so affectingly cherished by all sensitive 
beings, that he cannot reconcile it to his feel- 
ings to destroy, or become a voluntary party 
in the destruction of, any living creature, how- 
ever much in his power, or apparently insig- 
nificant. 

Q2 



348 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

III. 

Because he perceives in nature a gradation 
of existence, subordinate and successive, by 
which atoms form the granular and crystal- 
lized masses of inert matter, these forming 
vegetation, and vegetables forming animali- 
zation ; and this succession, with some excep- 
tions, unworthy of moral example, is the gene- 
ral chain of all existence. 

IV. 

Because nature appears to have made a 
super-abundant provision for the nourishment 
of animals in the saccharine matter of roots 
and fruits ; in the farinaceous matter of grain, 
seed, and pulse ; and in the oleaginous matter 
of the stalks, leaves, and pericarps, of numer- 
ous vegetables. 

v. 
Because the destruction of the mechanical 
organization of vegetables inflicts no sensitive 
suffering, nor violates any moral feeling ; while 
vegetables serve to render his own health, 
strength, and spirits, better than those of most 
carnivorous men. 



REASONS FOR NOT EATING ANIMAL FOOD. 349 
VI. 

Because, in the hope of emancipating himself 
from the sensual and selfish instincts which 
govern the human race, he yields to his moral 
and mental convictions, setting at defiance all 
those considerations about health and vigour 
which have been pressed upon him by the 
intellectual darkness and unfeeling assump- 
tions of the medical and philosophical schools. 

VII. 

Because he feels an utter and unconquera- 
ble repugnance against applying to his palate, 
masticating with his teeth, or receiving into 
his stomach, the flesh or juices of deceased 
animal organizations. 

VIII. 

Because, against devouring flesh in ge- 
neral, he feels the same abhorrence which he 
hears carnivorous persons express against 
eating human flesh, or the flesh of dogs, cats, 
horses, or other animals, which in some coun- 
tries it is customary for the carnivorous to 
devour. 



350 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

IX. 

Because he observes that carnivorous men, 
unrestrained by reflection or sentiment, even 
refine on the cruel practices of the most savage 
animals; and apply their resources of mind 
and art to prolong the miseries of the victims 
of their appetites, skinning, roasting, and boil- 
ing, animals alive, and torturing them without 
reservation or remorse, if they add thereby to 
the variety or the delicacy of their carnivo- 
rous gluttonies. 

x. 

Because, observing that carnivorous pro- 
pensities among animals are accompanied by 
a total want of sympathetic feelings and hu- 
mane sentiments, as in the hyena, the tyger, 
the vulture, the eagle, the crocodile, and the 
shark ; he conceives that the practices of those 
carnivorous brutes afford no worthy example 
for the imitation or justification of rational, 
reflecting, and conscientious, beings. 



Because, during forty-six years' rigid ab- 
stinence from the flesh and juices of de- 



REASONS FOR NOT EATING ANIMAL FOOD, 351 

ceased sensitive beings, he finds that he has 
suffered but one month's serious illness ; that 
his animal strength and vigour have been 
equal, or superior, to that of his contempo- 
raries ; and that his mind has been fully equal 
to numerous shocks, which it has had to 
encounter, from innumerable cases of turpi- 
tude in his fellow-men. 

XII. 

Because the natural sentiments and sympa- 
thies of human beings, in regard to the killing 
of other animals, are generally so averse to the 
practice, that few men or women could devour 
the animals which they might be obliged 
themselves to kill ; yet they forget, or affect to 
forget, the living endearments or dying suf- 
ferings of the creature, while they are wanton- 
ing over his remains. 

XIII. 

Because the human stomach appears to be 
naturally so averse to the remains of animals, 
that few could partake of them if they were 
not disguised and flavoured by culinary pre- 
paration ; yet rational creatures ought to feel 



852 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

that the prepared substances are not the less 
what they truly are, and none but savages 
could devour raw flesh, or kill and eat on the 
spot the quivering warm flesh of their victims, 
in itself loathsome. 

xiv. 

Because the forty-seven millions of acres in 
England and Wales would maintain in abund- 
ance as many human inhabitants, if they lived 
wholly on grain, fruits, and vegetables ; but 
they sustain only fifteen millions scantily, 
while animal food is made the basis of human 

subsistence. 

xv. 

Because animals do not present or contain 
the substance of food in mass, like vegetables ; 
every part of their economy being subservient 
to their own existence ; arid their entire frames 
being solely composed of blood necessary for 
life, of bones for strength, of muscles for mo- 
tion, and of nerves for sensation, just like 
ourselves. 

XVI. 

Because the practice of killing and devour- 
ing animals can be justified by no moral plea, 



REASONS FOR NOT EATING ANIMAL FOOD. 353 

by no physical benefit, nor by any allegation 
of necessity, in countries where there is abund- 
ance of vegetable food ; and where the arts of 
gardening and husbandry are favoured by 
social protection, and by the genial character 
of the soil and climate : for man is either not 
indigenous in climates which produce no ve- 
getation, or has neglected to migrate from 
countries whose physical character has 
changed. 

XVII. 

Because in morals, universally, the moral 
sense governs practices without regard to 
possible inconveniences ; while assumed in- 
conveniences are not in any case admitted as 
justifications of practices either unjust or 
immoral. It is not the duty, or in the power 
of man, to regulate the universe ; but it is his 
duty to respect his own moral sentiments, and 
leave to powers above his own, the balancing of 
nature, and the harmonizing of existence. 

XVIII. 

Because the practices of savages, and of 
savage ancestry, in killing and eating animals, 



354 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

are not entitled to more respect among civi- 
lized men, than the practices of many nations, 
even at this day, in killing and eating either 
their enemies or their way-laid neighbours; 
and so forcible is custom, that the laws of 
civilization against murder appear to be in- 
sufficient in deterring the practice of canniba- 
lism among some black tribes in the British 
colonies. 

XIX. 

Because custom has so misled men, and so 
hardened their hearts against sympathy for the 
sufferings of creatures in their power and un- 
protected by law, that killing and maiming is 
denominated sport, and skill in such prac- 
tices placed even on a level with the liberal 
arts and sciences, insomuch that man is the 
terror of all other animals, and the merciless 
tyrant of the whole animated creation. 

xx. 

Because all such practices as hunting, shoot- 
ing, fowling, fishing, badger-baiting, cock- 
fighting, bull-baiting, rook and gull shooting, 
&c. &c. deprive men of that sympathy and 



REASONS FOR NOT EATING ANIMAL FOOD. 355 

sense of mutual justice, which, in their inter- 
course with one another, ought to be as opera- 
tive as law, and the energies of which are 
essential to the happiness of society. 

XXI. 

Because whenever the number and hostility 
of predatory land animals might so tend to 
prevent the cultivation of vegetable food, as to 
render it indispensible to destroy them in 
self-defence, there could even in that case 
exist no necessity to destroy the animated 
existences in water; and, as in most civilized 
countries there exist no land-animals besides 
those which are purposely bred for slaughter 
or luxury, of course all destruction in such 
countries must arise either from unthinking 
wantonness or carnivorous gluttony. 

XXII. 

Because the stomachs of locomotive beings 
appear to have been provided for the purpose 
of conveying about, with the moving animal, 
nutritive substances, analogous in effect to the 
soil in which are fixed the roots of plants; and, 
consequently, nothing ought to be introduced 



6 



356 SOCIAL PHILOSOPHY. 

into the stomach for digestion and for absorp- 
tion by the lacteals, or roots of the animal 
system, but the natural bases of simple nutri- 
tion, as the saccharine, the oleaginous, and 
the farinaceous, matter of the vegetable 
kingdom. 



APPENDIX 



I. 

The doctrine of Attraction of every kind is demon- 
strably absurd, by the following considerations. If 
A and B move together, and meet in C 

AO .... C .... OB 
A is moved by a force from the part or side A, and 
B by a force from the part or side B. But, by the 
doctrine of attraction, B is said to move A, though B 
is not only not on the side A, but, in addition, is not 
there in power so as to move A to C. In like man- 
ner, A is said to move B ; but A is not on the side B 
where the force must be which is to move B to C. 
Therefore universally, when bodies go together, it is 
not their mutual actions ; and the doctrine of such 
mutual action is, in all cases whatever, a logical, me- 
chanical, and physical, absurdity. 

II. 

The doctrine of Repulsion is an absurdity as gross 
as that of attraction, because if A and B recede to 
Cand D 

C M A B fcT D 

O OO O 

While, as A is moving to C, its force must be in that 



358 APPENDIX. 

direction, or from A to C ; but B moves at the same 
time in a contrary direction from B to D; and, as 
motions are in the direction of their forces, the mo- 
tions of B cannot be caused by the force of A in its 
contrary motion from A to C. So, also, in regard to 
A with reference to B. The recession can, therefore, 
be caused by no mutual action of the bodies; and the 
doctrine is a logical, mechanical, and physical, 
absurdity. 

III. 

When theorists write so flippantly about centrifu- 
gal force, and liken the phenomena of the earth to 
those of a mop or a grindstone, they forget the 
orbicular motion, which is sixty-eight times greater 
than the equatorial rotatory motion. As centrifugal 
motion is merely an effect of one motion, it is 
neutralized, and even reversed, by any much greater 
simultaneous motion ; and, subject to a greater mo- 
tion, the rotatory motion then exerts its full force in 
producing simple equilibrium, concentration, and 
aggregation. 

IV. 

Many persons ask, with childish naivete, why, 
when a stone has been projected into the atmosphere, 
it does not revolve and continue at the height to which 
it has been projected, as thereis no attraction; forget- 
ting, or choosing to forget, that the stone was raised 
by the re-action of some animal or machine against 
the earth ; and that, before so raised, it had a tendency 
to fall lower, which tendency is not destroyed by the 



APPENDIX. 359 

temporary elevating force ; but, continually acting, 
contributes with the resistance of the air to destroy 
the temporary force, and, when that is dissipated, 
the original force acts as at first, and carries the stone 
towards the centre of the moving mass of which it 
was and is an integral part. For the common force 
which revolves the mass, is not competent to carry 
round a stone at that distance from the centre in 
equilibrium with the whole ; and either the stone must 
move towards the centre into a circle of less velo- 
city, or the centre must move towards the stone, and 
the earth itself become lop-sided, on account of the 
stone, which is absurd. 

To render this clear, we will consider the con- 
centric circles as representing strata of the earth. 




Consequently the arcs 1, 2, and 3, 4, and 5, 6, 
are performed in equal times ; and the velocities are 
less and less as we approach the centre. But the 
whole earth is turned by a common force, or by one 
force common to all the parts ; consequently every 
part will present or acquire, or endeavour to acquire, 
an equal re-action ; or, in other words, the momenta 
of every part will be equal, or endeavour to become 
equal. The velocities, however, are as the distances 



860 APPENDIX. 

from the centre ; consequently the densities in each 
circle, in equal momenta, must be inversely as the 
distance, or endeavour to become so ; and hence the 
fall of dense bodies towards circles of rotation which 
are inversely as their densities. 

To render this more obvious, we will suppose a 
mountain to be placed on the side of the globe. 



Now, previously to the addition of the mountain, the 
centre of motion was at A ; but, as the centre of 
motion will be the centre of the entire mass, the ad- 
dition of the mountain raises the centre of motion 
to B, nearer the mountain. The motion is now lop- 
sided, and an action and re-action takes place be- 
tween the globular mass and the mountain, by which 
B is forced towards A, or the mountain is acted upon 
as it were to be absorbed in the mass. All the 
parts of the mountain seek, therefore, the exterior 
circle of the mass, or tumble as fast as they can. 
But, if the top of the mountain were only an unsus- 
tained stone, which, while partaking of the general 
motion, had been projected to that height; then such 
cause would not remove A to B ; which the whole mass 
acting against the stone would bring it back with a 
continuous or accelerated velocity. 



APPENDIX. 361 



The same figure will explain the cause of the 
tides. Suppose a mountain to be placed on the 
earth, and the centre of gyration carried from A to B; 
then, as the mobile waters would respect the centre 
of gyration, so they would rise around the mountain 
and render the mass elliptical. But, if we suppose 
the mountain to be elevated above the mass, like the 
moon, and the mechanical action still continued, 
and B raised to the centre of the momenta of both, 
like the fulcrum of the earth and moon ; then the 
waters would arise towards that fulcrum, just as 
they did towards the mountain, and their rise would 
be directly as the force of the fulcrum, and inversely 
as the density of the waters. The seas rise, there- 
fore, towards the fulcrum of the earth and moon— the 
mechanical action of the distant moon being like 
that of a mountain on the earth — and towards the 
moon itself, because the fulcrum is in the right line 
which joins the centres of the earth and moon ; and 
the mutual actions of the masses are connected by 
the gas of space. 

VI. 

The re-action of the medium of space turns the 
planets from west to east, with a force which is 
governed by the variable action on their eastern sides, 
and which variation is as the square of the distance 
of their near and remote hemispheres; and a calcula- 
tion of the variable forces corresponds to the 1000th 



362 APPENDIX. 

part of a mile. The hypothesis of gravitation is 
wholly inapplicable to this phenomenon. Action 
and re-action are necessarily co-equal and opposed, 
and a calculation of one is that of the other. 



VII. 

Comets sometimes move in consequentia, and some- 
times in antecedentia, proving thereby that their 
motions are independent of the solar vortex, though 
influenced by it in passing through it. 



POSTSCRIPT 

i 

TO THE 

GOLDEN RULES FOR BANKERS. 



London; Jan. 1, 1826. 

In the evening of the day on which the Dedication 
to this volume was written, the Author found him- 
self, by a sort of social Earthquake, placed in new 
relations to his connexions and contemporaries. In 
1823, after a life devoted to the diffusion of know- 
ledge, and after writing, editing, and supervising, 
innumerable books, tending to make the next gene- 
ration wiser than the last, he disposed of a third 
share in his principal literary property, and retired on 
a moderate competency to Brighton ; hoping there to 
pass the evening of his life, at least in ease, and 
devoting himself to many of the speculations which 
appear in this volume. 

His tranquillity had been for several weeks dis- 
turbed by newspaper reports of the wrecks of com- 
mercial fortunes, and by accounts of the increased 
distresses of his old connexions in trade. Yet, as 
there appeared no immediate cause for these difficul- 
ties, and he was not apprized of the experiments 
making on public credit by men incapable of direct- 

R 



364 POSTSCRIPT. 

ing such delicate interests^ he had no suspicion of 
the consequences inevitable on a general social 
panic, in which all were excited to save themselves, 
and rush on the bankers of the empire, and on one 
another, by a scramble at once ruinous and fatal. 

The ministers had disturbed all the staple esta- 
blishments of the country by their empirical schemes 
about free and open trade, — the Parliament had 
given sanction to stock companies out of number, 
by their repeal of the Bubble Act, — and even- 
thing had been put to hazard in subordination to 
Scottish theories of political economy, which at best 
are applicable only to nations in equal condition : yet 
no one had anticipated a total breaking up of the 
commerce, credit, and industry of the country ; 
much less, that the Kino's ministers would look on 
in perfect tranquillity at the total destruction of a 
fabric not likely, amid the rivalry of other nations, 
to be raised again. 

Never were the vital energies of a great and pros- 
perous empire so suddenly destroyed. Credit and 
mutual confidence had been unbounded, and grow- 
ing for fourscore years, and industry and useful 
enterprise seemed to be assured of their proper re- 
ward. Under this state of things, the Golden 
Rules for Bankers and some others were written ; 
but, in a single month, they seem more like dreams 
than realities. All national improvement is suddenly 
arrested, — all industry is at a stand ! Tens of thou- 
sands of families, who on the 1st of December were 
in comfort and affluence, are on the 1st of January 



POSTSCRIPT. 365 

either ruined, or on the brink of ruin. The health- 
ful and cheerful character of the population of the 
British Islands is changed ; no man will trust his 
neighbour for as many pence as but a month before 
he would for pounds, — self-preservation, by means 
of the vengeance of law, actuates man against man, 
—and a civil and social war is engendered, as fatal 
to this empire of credit and industry, as an earth- 
quake of the Caraccas or Asia Minor, or the plagues 
of the Levant. 

The Author hastened, under such circumstances, 
to London, and found it a Pandemonium ! Several 
opulent banks had been run down by the public 
phrenzy on that day; and commercial houses of 
established credit had stopped payment by scores. 
The panic spread over the nation, and the stoppage 
of four-score country banking establishments has 
ruined or paralysed the active generation of 
British traders, agriculturists, and manufacturers. 
He proceeded to the Bank of England, and sug- 
gested two measures to its Directors : 1. That they 
should formally guarantee any London bank run 
upon, as the certain means of stopping the run, and 
rendering their guarantee harmless ; and 2. That the 
discounts should be open for a week to all applicants 
who presented good and approved bills. He wrote 
to the minister, and suggested that Exchequer Bills, 
of limited amounts, should be issued for notes of 
three housekeeping traders at three months, and of 
four, or more, at longer dates. The salvation of com- 
mercial credit appeared to him worth the hazard of 
half a million. The die, however, was cast ; 



366 POSTSCRIPT. 

and, strange to relate, it appeared to him that 
an experiment of policy was making. ! Machiavel, 
how thou sinkest into insignificance ! Thou never 
suggestedst an experimental means of ruining a whole 
people by a single blow! 

The Author suffered his full share of the general 
calamity. Two banking-houses with which he was 
connected stopped on the same day; and, to com- 
plete his disaster, the agent to whom he had confided 
the sale of his literary property was involved, at the 
same hour, in the common ruin ! Ease and domestic 
comfort were thus, as by the wand of enchantment, 
exchanged for anxiety and sorrow ; and the luxury 
of doing good ceased to be indulged by the mistrust 
of all, the distress of all, and the apparent necessity 
that all would be destroyed to discover the sterling 
or naked worth of each ! 

The extinction cf commercial credit had thus at 
a stroke destroyed full four hundred millions of the 
circulating wealth. All nominal obligations re- 
mained in their legal relations to that four hundred 
millions ; but only forty millions of bank-notes and 
coin existed to meet at. least ten times the amount ; 
and as the disorder augments itself, so, without regard- 
ing other considerations, commercial bills and time 
engagements seem likely to be reduced to tza o shillings 
in the pound, if paid in money, or to stocks at de- 
preciated value, with the intermediate ruin of the 
unhappy owners. 

Such a state of a great people, great as they had 
been by their union and confidence, might, it would 
have been supposed, have drawn forth the energies 



POSTSCRIPT. 367 

of the men entrusted with the conduct of the govern- 
ment. But, on the contrary, a frigid and incomprehen- 
sible indifference, judging by their actions, marked 
their conduct ; and it was reported that a leading mi- 
nister observed, that the evil would work its own cure! 
If any man did make such a remark, he ought to die 
the death of De Witt. It must have been a false 
report, or a misconception of its auditors ! Yet little 
could be discovered as an act of the govern- 
ment, unless the pouring out of millions of 
bank-notes in an indiscriminate and utterly useless 
manner could be traced to them; not, however, 
to the efficient trading community, but to capitalists, 
bankers, and others, who in self-defence, or in alarm 
and fear, abstracted the whole from general use ! 
The nation was therefore in the situation described 
in art. viii. page 224 ; and, owing to the grossest 
ignorance of the circulation of money, hundreds of 
families must be driven into foreign lands to enjoy 
their industry under a less imposing, but more 
steady and staple system. 

From the exultation expressed at the recovery of 
the public funds, it might be supposed that the 
ministry regard the nation as a society of stock- 
jobbers; that they consider the debt as the wealth of 
the nation, and their exchequer bills as the founda- 
tion of its prosperity ! A more heartless abandon- 
ment of a people to a panic in which they necessarily 
destroyed themselves, — and less skill in relieving and 
restoring the talent and property overwhelmed in the 
struggle, — cannot be conceived. 
The whole is to be regarded as a phenomenon in 



368 



POSTSCRIPT, 



the history of nations. The state of England was 
itself a phenomenon. It stood before the world as 
the most wealthy and most improving of all coun- 
tries, — not in population, in natural productions, or 
in specie; but in credit, industry, and mutual 
confidence. The contingency of such a country 
destroyed in a week could never have been antici- 
pated either by reason or experience ; but it is to be 
lamented that such an effect should have been 
allowed to take place without the smallest display of 
energy to parry and ameliorate the blow : — for credit 
and confidence are reared only by the good conduct 
of successive generations, and as that which has 
happened may at any time happen again, so the 
bases of British greatness are shaken ; and that 
greatness, which arose solely from such qualities, has 
suffered a shock from which it can never fully 
recover. 

Those who are ignorant of the true secret of British 
wealth and strength, will be taught by the Golden 
Rules for Bankers. In this peculiar system has 
lain the means which distinguish England in the 
reigns of George the Third and Fourth from those of 
Charles I. and II. Stop the credit of banks, ob- 
struct the regular means of discounting commercial 
bills, and England falls to the state of Poland and 
Spain ; that is, of a country without available capi- 
tal. The vulgar have on this, as on other occasions, 
been the dupes of their short-sightedness. They 
aided by their folly in the run upon the banks, and 
actually rejoiced in their overthrow ; but, as imme- 



POSTSCRIPT. 369 

diate consequences, they have been discharged from 
employment by hundreds and by thousands. The 
narrow-minded land-owner, and the petty-fogging 
trader, fearful of his own shadow, imagine that 
something is gained by the destruction of that 
extent of credit which they never possessed the mag- 
nanimity to enjoy ; but in a few months they will 
feel their error, and perish in the muck of their own 
selfishness. The purse-proud capitalist exclaimed, 
for a few days, " thank God, I am not as other 
men;" but by these, the public funds, and the re- 
venue, the entire loss must be ultimately borne. 
The hue and cry about accommodation bills, and 
false credit, is absurd. They were partly the neces- 
sary means of the system, and tended essentially to 
support the false capital of eight hundred millions 
in the pretended public funds ! If a few banks or 
commercial houses enjoyed a factitious and unwar- 
ranted credit, such excrescences would, in due 
course, have been cut off; but it is at once base and 
foolish to convulse the whole nation, and destroy all 
the just and necessary relations of society to effect 
a purpose which, in itself, was of no general conse- 
quence, and correct an abuse which grew up with 
the funded system, and was identified with it. 

To insinuate that, in such an overthrow, things 
would find their own level, is as wicked as the ob- 
servation of Louis the Fourteenth, who, when the 
Palatinate was ravaged, and 100,000 of its inhabi- 
tants massacred, replied that his good city of Paris 
would in a single night replace the loss. The ex- 
pre ssions must have been made by kindred minds ; 



370 POSTSCRIPT. 

and, if made by any minister of England, he is as 
culpable as Louis, and ought, at least, to be consi- 
dered as unworthy of his station. 

We hear of bankers re-opening ; but though cre- 
ditable to them and disgraceful to the public, yet, 
cui bono, — Have they the same capital and the 
same spirit ? Nothing of the kind : they are crippled 
for ever. Other banks, too, are crippled for years ; 
and, if for years, for ever, as to any beneficial 
or efficient purpose. 

Men, right-minded men, can flourish only in 
countries where commercial credit is identified with 
the policy of the state ; where the ministers of the 
crown duly understand and respect the identity of 
both interests; and where, when one is endangered 
by a public panic, the other is cheerfully and 
anxiously seen to lend its aid and effective counter- 
action. This, however, is not, in regard to the 
Author, an abstract speculation ; he is on a sudden 
drawn into the vortex of public suffering, and he 
laments with others that his fortunes are chained 
to a country liable to such frightful and destructive 
mutations. A man would rather live in the 
West India Islands, and suffer an annual hurri- 
cane, which affected his crops and out-buildings, 
amidst the sympathy of his neighbours, than be 
subject once in his life to a social tornado, which 
suddenly blasts his industry, involves his children 
and dearest connexions in hopeless ruin, occasions 
his resources to slip from under his feet, and almost 
renders suicide a virtue. 



POSTSCRIPT. 371 



On the 20th of January, on putting this sheet 
to press, the Author is enabled to state, that all the 
unhappy results which he anticipated in the previous 
observations, have been fatally realized. No indivi- 
dual banker or capitalist became, or could be ex- 
pected to become, the forlorn hope of commercial 
credit ; and the government, as the proper guardians 
of the public interests to men in trade, omitting to 
do their obvious duty by issues of creditable Exche- 
quer-bills, the wealth, strength, and prosperity, 
which flowed from mutual confidence, have been 
destroyed; and, in a commercial and financial sense, 
general social disorganization has been produced by 
an irrational and uncorrected social dismay. 

The evil is, at the same time, increasing every day, 
because new failures are constantly taking place in 
every branch of trade; these involve their connexions 
and dependencies, till whole trades are implicated ; 
and universal inability to meet engagements in money 
is the consequence. 

Thus, on a sudden, by the action and re-action of 
such a social conflict, the four or five hundreu mil- 
lions of bills of exchange which constituted the nego- 
ciable assets of trade, founded on two thousand mil- 
lions of stocks, and the very means which enabled 
the people to pay the taxes, and carry all the arts of 
civilization to the highest pitch, have lost their 
value ; and we have a population of traders and ma- 
nufacturers encumbered by time engagements to that 
amount, with no means of liquidating them, but in 



372 POSTSCRIPT. 

the remaining currency of forty millions of bank- 
notes and specie. It is evident, therefore, that the 
forty millions, even if in general circulation, and 
available, could only pay a tenth, or two shil- 
lings in the pound, on the bills in course of pay- 
ment, taking the average of the nation ; while the 
difference must intermediately fall on bill-holders 
and capitalists, and ultimately on insolvent stocks 
brought at once, and ruinously, to market ! 

Hitherto credit was sustained by circulation ; old 
debts were paid by new ones, and one set of bills 
were cancelled by a new set. A man while in trade 
generally owed as much one year as another ; and this 
is the essence of trade, and its characteristic under 
the most prosperous circumstances. Such has been 
its uniform system in Britain ; where its energies, thus 
acting, and thus supported, have produced and sus- 
tained our wonderful financial prosperity. 

This commercial debt, let it be understood, has 
risen simultaneously with the funded debt; and has 
been an undesigned and unsuspected artifice of men 
in trade, by means of which they counteracted the 
operation of the public debt, and were enabled to 
meet its demands on their industry. One debt is a 
reflection and an effect of the other; and, if the 
commercial debt is destroyed, the funded debt would 
lose the support, prop, and buttress, which upheld it 
in the industry of the people. 

Is the funded system to be supported ? If so, then 
commercial credit must be supported. They act in 
unison, like two ends of a lever. But it is absurd to 



POSTSCRIPT. 373 

affect to respect commercial credit, and decry the 
banking system, and the credit of bills of exchange, 
in which consists the active circulating capital of men 
in trade. At the same time, the Author is no pro- 
fessed advocate of the funded system, nor of its 
necessary adjuncts ; and society might, in his opi- 
nion, be more happy if no paper circulation existed : 
but let us be consistent — for, as great misery would 
result from the destruction of the funded system, as 
has arisen from the destruction of commercial 
credit; and the Author is unwilling to pass sentence of 
death and misery on the thousands of families who 
depend on the funds. He is not in the cabinet of the 
sovereign, or in the counting-house of the Jews, and 
he knows nothing of their ulterior designs ; but he 
infers, from all that has passed within the last two 
months, that some design has been planned, and has 
been in action, which* ought to awaken the jealousy 
of every father of a family in Britain. 

With the credit of this generation, will necessarily 
disappear its trade and useful enterprise ; and, as 
we have rivals both in Europe and America, and 
there are countries where Governments would not 
turn their backs on the working bees of the commu- 
nity, it can scarcely be expected that the former 
commercial prosperity of England can ever be re- 
stored. The rumoured Treaty with France will not 
effect its restoration, because our only ground of 
ascendency was our commercial credit, and the ca- 
pital resulting from it; and this has been unwisely 
neglected, contemned, and destroyed. 



374 POSTSCRIPT. 

Besides artizans employed in buildings and works 
of improvement, who have been discharged by tens 
of thousands, every report from the manufactories of 
London, and the country, proves that other tens of 
thousands have necessarily been discharged from 
them. The stoppage of country banks, and a 
maturity of obligations, will augment this class of 
miseries; and in this way, in the language of a 
Minister, " the evil will work its own cure." The 
withdrawing of the loans of country bankers to 
farmers, and the various consequences of reduced 
circulation, will, of course, soon affect the agricul- 
turists ; and the landed interest will then echo the 
complaints of the commercial; and the distress, felt 
four or five years ago, will be renewed through the 
nation in all its horrors. 

In the ruin of the commercial and agricultural 
interests, must follow that of the revenue and 
funded system. The prosperity of the latter, was 
the prosperity of the former; but it seemed to be the 
policy of certain persons, and the irrational wish of 
others, who hate the system or do not understand it, 
that an experiment should be made on commercial 
credit, even though, in u working its own cure," it 
should place at hazard, or even destroy, the entire 
fabric of our national prosperity. 

He now repeats, that it has proved utterly useless 
to pour forth millions of bank-notes to justly alarmed 
bankers and bank- discounters. The middling ranks 
of traders and manufacturers constitute the vital 
strength of the commercial system ; and it was, and 



POSTSCRIPT. 375 

is, this class 'who required special support. Five 
millions of Exchequer-bills might have effected all 
that was wanted, a month ago; but twenty-five would 
now scarcely effect the same purpose. 

The nation look anxiously to Parliament for re- 
dress, and for an explanation of the cause of its 
meeting being deferred at a crisis when the fortunes 
of the country depended on the promptitude of its 
collective wisdom. If the commercial interest is 
duly stimulated by its actual sufferings, and the 
landed and funded interests by those in prospect, we 
may hope that Parliament will give a salutary lesson 
to Ministers ; and that the plague which has fixed 
itself upon the nation will, without loss of time, be 
arrested in its frightful course. 

If it be asked, what is best to be done by a people 
who, without any fault of their own, are on a sudden 
called upon to pay four hundred millions with less 
than forty, under the rigour of Bankrupt Commis- 
sions, the ignominy of Insolvent Courts, and all the 
machinery of special originals, executions, extents, 
&c. &c. ? — the Author replies, with the honest de- 
sign of answering the question to the best of his 
judgment. He advises petitions and remonstrances 
to Parliament, individual and collective. If these 
fail, then he recommends that one hundred thousand 
fathers and mothers of ruined families make a pro- 
cession, in all humility, from London to Windsor, — 
seek the retreat of the Sovereign in the recesses of 
the Forest, and make the discovery to him of the 
condition of his people, and of their hopeless situa- 



376 POSTSCRIPT. 

tioiij under ministers who consider their distresses as 
sanatory ! If this fail, then the example of history 
points out emigration as the last resource. America 
is too distant for wives and children; but the acces- 
sion of one or two millions of industrious families 
would probably induce the Kings of France and the 
Netherlands to build towns, with privileges, on the 
coasts of those countries, where, disentangled from 
the load of the national debt, industry may find a 
land of Canaan ; and, at least, live in the hope of 
enjoying its proper reward. 

Such are the plans of the Author : they grow out 
of the existing circumstances ; and, that they may 
not be necessary, — that better policy may govern 
the councils of the State, — and that the pending 
calamities of the country may be promptly averted, 
— is his fervent wish. 



THE END. 



•'. anl C. AJlard, Printers, BarthoJoii.. u 



BY THE SAME AUTHOR, 

AND TO BE HAD OF ALL THE BOOKSELLERS, 



| I. 

A LETTER to the LIVERY of LONDON on the 
DUTIES of the SHERIFFS of LONDON and MIDDLESEX. 7s. 

II. 

A TREATISE on the POWERS and DUTIES of 
JURIES. 8s. 

III. 

A MORNING'S WALK from LONDON to KEW ; 

or, VIEWS of BRITISH SOCIETY. 8s. 6d. 

IV. 

TWELVE ESSAYS on the PROXIMATE CAUSES 
of the MATERIAL PHENOMENA of the UNIVERSE. 10s. 6d. 

V. 

ILLUSTRATIONS of the INTERROGATIVE SYS- 
TEM of EDUCATION. 6d. 

VI. 

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of the ATOMIC and AGGREGATE PHENOMENA of NA- 
TURE. 5s. 



APPENDIX 

TO 

GOLDEN RULES 

FOR THE 

STUDY OF NATURE. 



I.— Art. XI. 

The doctrine of Attraction of every kind is rendered 
demonstrably absurd, by the following consider- 
ations : — 

1. Every motion of every body is in the direction of a force impressed. 

2. Every special direction of the motion of any body affords evidence 
of the existence of some force acting in the same direction. 

3. A body does not move without some impelling force acting in the 
direction of the motion. 

4. Every impelling force is proportioned to the velocity and the quan- 
tity of matter of which the impelling force consists. 

5. Without matter in velocity, there can be no impelling force. 

6. The existence of any force, therefore, bespeaks the existence of mat- 
te? in velocity, acting in the direction of the resulting force. 

If A and B move together, and meet in C 
AO .... C .... OB 

then A must be moved by some force from the side A ; 
and B by some force from the part B. But, by 
the hypothesis of attraction, B is said to move A, 
though B is not only not on the side A whence the 
force proceeds ; but, also, is not there in power, so 
that B cannot move A to C. 

In like manner, A is said to move B ; but A is not 
on the side B, where the force must be which is com- 
petent to move B to C 

Therefore A is not the mover of B, nor B the 
mover of A; and, universally, when bodies go 
together, it is not by their mutual actions for the 
like reasons ; and the doctrine of such pretended mu- 
tual action must, therefore, in all cases whatsoever, 
be a logical, mechanical, and physical, absurdity, 
while the causes must be sought by other reasonings. 



358 APPENDIX TO GOLDEN RULES 

II.— Art. XII. 

The doctrine of Repulsion is an absurdity as gross 
as that of attraction, because, if we suppose A and 
B to recede simultaneously to C and D 

C A B D 

O 43) OO Pr o 

Then, as A moves to C, the moving force must be in 
that direction, or from A towards C ; but B, the 
body said to repel, moves at the same time in a con- 
trary direction from B to D j and, as resulting mo- 
tions are in the direction of their forces, so the mo- 
tions of B cannot be caused by the force of A during 
its contrary motion from A to C. So, also, in regard 
to A with reference to B. The recession cannot, 
therefore, be caused by any mutual action of the two 
bodies ; and the doctrine for like reasons is, in all 
cases, a logical, mechanical, and physical, absurdity. 
III.— Art. XIV. 

When theorists write so flippantly about centrifu- 
gal force, and liken the phenomena of the earth to 
those of a mop or a grindstone, they forget the 
simultaneous orbicular motion, which is sixty-eight 
times greater than the equatorial rotatory motion. 
As centrifugal motion is merely an effect of one 
motion, so it is neutralized, and may even be re- 
versed, by any much greater simultaneous motion, 
in some other direction, either oblique or contrary; 
and, subject to such greater motion, the rotatory motion 
would then exert its full force in producing either 
mere equilibrium, or concentration and aggrega- 
tion, in a resulting central force, governed by the 
excess of the orbicular motion over the rotatory. 

IV.— Art. XV. 
Many persons ask, with childish naivete, why, 
when a stone has been projected into the atmosphere, 
it does not revolve and continue at the height to 
which it has been projected; as, say they, it is 
alleged that there is no attraction; forgetting, or 
choosing to forget, that the stone was raised simply 



FOR THE STUDY OP NATURE. 3-59 

by the re-action of some animal or machine against 
the earth; and that, before it was raised, it had a ten- 
dency, so to speak, to fall lower, which is not de- 
stroyed by the temporary elevating force; but, by 
continually re-acting, contributes with the resistance 
of the air to destroy the temporary elevating force ; 
and, when this is thereby dissipated, the original force 
acting as at first, carries the unsustained stone to- 
wards the centre of the mass of which it was, 
and still is, an integral part. Further, the common 
force which revolves the entire mass, is not compe- 
tent to carry round a stone at that distance from the 
centre in equilibrium with the whole; and either the 
stone must move towards the centre into a circle of 
less velocity, or the centre must move towards the 
stone, and the earth itself become lop-sided, on ac- 
count of the stone's elevation, which is absurd. 

To render this clear, we will consider the concen- 
tric circles as representing strata of the earth. 




Consequently the arcs 1, 2, and 3, 4, and 5, 6, are 
performed in equal times; and the velocities are less 
and less as we approach the centre. But the whole 
earth is turned by a common force, or by one force 
common to all the parts ; consequently, every part 
will present, or acquire, or endeavour to acquire, an 
equal re-action ; or, in other words, the momenta of 
every part will be equal, or endeavour, to become 
equal. The velocities, however, are as the distances 
from the centre ; consequently, the densities of each 
circle, to be in equal momenta, must be inversely as 



360 



APPENDIX TO GOLDEN RULES 



the distance, or endeavour to become so; and hence 
the fall of dense bodies towards such circles of rota- 
tion, as are in length inversely as their relative 
densities ; that is, the density at 1, 2, must be to the 
density at 5, 6, as the length of the arc 5, 6 is 
to that of 1,2. 

To render this more obvious, we will suppose a 
mountain to be placed on the side of a globe, 




Now, previously to the addition of the mountain, the 
centre of motion was at A; but, as the centre of 
motion will be the centre of the entire mass, so the 
addition of the mountain carries the centre of motion 
to B, or nearer to the mountain. 

The motion is now lop-sided, and an action and 
re-action takes place between the globular mass and 
the mountain, by which B is forced towards A, or the 
mountain is acted upon, as it were, so as to become 
.absorbed in the mass. 

All the parts of the mountain seek, therefore, 
the exterior circle of the mass, or tumble as fast 
as they can. But, if we suppose the top of 
the mountain to be only an unsustained stone, 
which, while partaking of the general motion, had 
been projected to that height; then such cause would 
not be competent to remove A to B, but the whole 
mass acting against the unsustained stone would 
bring it back towards A with a continuous force 
and accelerated velocity. 

Y.—Art. XXI. 

The last figure will explain the cause of the 

TIDES. 



FOR THE STUDY OF NATURE. 



361 



Suppose such a mountain to be placed on the 
earth, and the centre of gyration carried from A to 
B; then, as the mobile waters would respect the 
centre of gyration, so they would rise around the 
mountain and render the entire mass elliptical. 

But, if we now suppose the mountain to be elevated 
above and out of the mass, like the Moon, and the 
mechanical action to be still continued, B being 
raised to the centre of the momenta of both, like the 
fulcrum of the earth and moon; then the mobile 
waters would arise towards that fulcrum, just as they 
would towards the mountain. 

The seas rise, therefore, towards the fulcrum of the 
earth and moon — the mechanical action of the dis- 
tant moon being like that of a mountain on the 
earth — and towards the moon itself, because the ful- 
crum is in the right line which joins the centres of 
the earth and moon ; while the mutual actions of the 
masses are connected by the gas of space, with a law of 
force which, in gas, is inversely as the squares of the 
distances, and directly as the masses. 

VI.— Art. XXIV. 

The re-action of the medium of space turns the 
planets from west to east, with a force which is 
governed by the variable action on their eastern sides, 
and which variation is as the square of the distance 
of their near and remote hemispheres ; and a calcu- 
lation of the variable forces corresponds to the 1000th 
part of a mile. 

The hypothesis of gravitation is wholly inapplica- 
ble to this phenomenon. Action and re-action are 
necessarily co-equal and opposed, and a calculation 
of one is that of the other, for the rotation is not 
caused by the direct action or impulse, but by the 
re-action on the opposite side, which re-action turns 
the earth the contrary way; like a bowl projected on 
the ground, which, by the re-action, is turned ov 
rotated backward as it were. 



362 APPENDIX TO GOLDEN RULES 

Y1I— Art. XXVI. 

Comets sometimes movein con sequent! a, and some- 
times in antecedentia, proving thereby that their 
motions are independent of the solar vortex, though 
influenced by it in passing through it. 

viii.— An. xxviii. 

We live within space essentially full, and this 
fulness or continuity of force uniting to force, con- 
stitutes the means of diffusing phenomena from one 
part to another. The atoms which fill space are not 
quiescent or united, but in constant relative motions, 
and this motion constitutes a perfect fluidity, or a 
facility of moving through the space so filled. The 
fixing or taking off of the motions of the atoms, gene- 
rates animal energy and heat, and also the heat of 
flame. The propulsion of the atoms one by one in 
trains constitutes light; and the vibrations, or waves 
in mass, create what we call sound. Different 
sizes of atoms produce colours and tones. Our senses 
are immersed within this plenitude of atoms, and 
appropriately affected by their different modes of 
excitement : for every excitement extends around, and 
every termination, as at the eye, or ear, or skin, is 
like the action of one end of a stick when pushed at 
the other end ; merely with this difference, that it is a 
radiation, and the energy at any distant point is 
inversely as the square of the distance ; but the ful- 
ness joins us and connects us with every distant 
object within the space so filled. Hence the universe 
is one united and connected whole, and the varieties 
arise from the two laws and modes of connexion, one 
by unbroken continuity, as in solids, and the other 
by radiation, as in fluids and gasses; while, in these, 
other varieties are created by viscidity and density. 
In regard to these subjects, the errors of men have 
arisen from their considering every space as void 
in which they could not see matter and connexion, 
and in the silly notion that rarity and density are 






FOR THE STUDY OF NATURE. 363 

occasioned by repulsive powers in the atoms, instead 
of such motions or rotations, as necessarily include 
the conditions of varied expansibility, excitement, 
and substantial continuity. 

IX.— Art. XXXVIII. 

The assumption made by the Author of the new 
Philosophy, that Gas consists of atoms performing 
circular rotations, or filling orbits proportioned to 
the excitement, startles many persons ; but, on con- 
sideration, it will be found to be accordant with all 
the circumstances and phenomena. 

This seems certain, that space, or space filled with 
gas, is, in some mode, filled with atoms ; and there 
are only three ways in which they can exist. 

1. In quiescence, at equal or different distances, 
exerting repulsion, while the principle of repulsion is 
absurd ; and then qualities per se must be assigned 
to the atoms, which are again as absurd as repulsion 
itself. 

2. In rectilinear motions , crossing each other, and 
rilling the space as the common result of the presence 
of all, and the preponderance of particulars. But 
this would be a chaos of atoms without system or 
harmony ; though even these obstructions would gene- 
rate localized, circular action, in clouds of obstructed 
atoms . 

3. In curvilinear orbits, resulting from rectilinear 
projections in the first instance, and then from ob- 
structions, deflections, and reflections, from surfaces 
and atoms, which fill every known space; for, in due 
time, however great may be the impulsive force, or 
velocity of a projected atom, and however distant 
the obstruction may commence from the points of 
projection ; yet, when it does commence, then the in- 
tervening space must be ultimately filled with de- 
flected, and deflecting atoms, at first in confusion, 
but ultimately in regular motions, and circular, 
because this would be the necessary result of an infi- 



364 APPENDIX TO GOLDEN RULES 

nite number of cross re-actions, opposed at different 
angles to an original impulse. 

Such would exactly explain the phenomena of 
gaseous elasticity and expansibility; the appropria- 
tion of more motion or heat by enlargement, and the 
return or restoration by compression or fixation. In 
a word, it explains all the phenomena of heat, light, 
sound, electricity, gassification, expansion, conden- 
sation, &c. &c. none of which can be explained, or 
reasoned about, on any other hypothesis. 

Nevertheless, it is not pretended to explain how 
different gases combine in the same space, nor pre- 
cisely in what the differences consist; whether they 
rotate within one another; whether in the same or 
different planes ; whether the effects may not be 
varied by the direction of the plane of rotation ; whe- 
ther the atoms are of the same or different forms, or 
bulks, or densities; whether to fill corners of orbits, 
different sizes are not necessary; whether to fill cen- 
tres, other varieties are not employed, &c. I All 
these, and many other questions, may amuse inge- 
nuity for many ages, but they do not affect the gene- 
ral principle, that gazeous existence, universally, 
consists of atoms moving in circular orbits. 

X.—Art. XLV. 

When we view the form of an animal at a suitable 
distance, we hastily conclude that we see the crea- 
ture which acts and lives; but, in truth, we see only 
his shell, and his organs of external power and 
motion. We see the skin, or case, which covers his 
muscles, and serves as a means of re-acting against 
them, and keeping them in their places; and, con- 
junctively with these, the nerves, blood-vessels, 
lacteals, sinews, tendons, &c. as so many adjuncts for 
various special, and even necessary uses, of the ani- 
mal, but not the creature itself. The whole which we 
see is, in truth, analogous to the shell of a snail or 
periwincle ; and, in looking at any animal, we see the 



FOR THE STUDY OF NATURE. 865 

real creature not more than we see a snail or peri - 
wincle when we look at its shell. In truth, the real 
creature is as much out of sight, as a snail or peri- 
wincle when drawn within its shell. The actu- 
ality for whose use and support all these external 
adjuncts are provided ; the identity which feels, rea- 
sons, acts, and is conscious, is the medullary system ; 
that is, the brain and marrow, and the nerves, or feelers, 
which emanate and radiate from them. This is, or 
these are, the true animal, or real snail or periwincle, 
of which the solid house, shell, and case of pro- 
tection, are the bones; and all the rest lying above 
the bones, and over, and around the bones, are mere 
adjuncts for the sustenance of the real creature or 
medullary system, or for the motions of the bones. 
The perceptions of hearing and seeing are effected by 
instruments for condensing, appropriating, and con- 
veying, to the medullary system, certain delicate 
external excitements; while those of tasting, smelling, 
and feeling, arise from immediate impulse on nerves. 
The animal begins in the foetus as a medullary system 
like a tadpole ; it is then covered and clothed in the 
womb with bones and adjuncts ; it emerges, and is 
educated and disciplined by the world; it wears out, 
loses its energies, and death is the loss of power in 
the medullary system. 

Every animal, therefore, with reference to its sen- 
sations, volitions, and motions, as distinguished from 
a vegetable or mechanical mass, consists in reality of 
the soft pulpy substance called brains, marrow, and 
nerves, with a bony case, which case is moved by the 
muscles fixed to them, called flesh. The animal, 
shut up in this case, derives intelligence from without 
by means of holes in the case, as the eye-holes and 
the ear-holes, and these are possessed by all animals. 
The animal also sends out threads of its medullary 
substance over the body for universal feeling, and 
certain parts are exposed, as the nerves for tasting 
and smelling. This pulpy creature has its centre in 



366 APPENDIX TO GOLDEN RULES 

the skull case, where is situated its outlets of commu- 
nication, and where it perceives, thinks, reasons, and 
decides. Its extensions in the back-bone case have 
reference merely to the system of motion ; and this 
part, impelled by the centre or brain, according to 
intelligence from without, governs the motions of 
the frame, either for convenience, pleasure, or neces- 
sity. We are not, therefore, to suppose we see any 
animal in looking at its external structure, for we see 
only the form of the adjuncts of motion, and the pro- 
tecting case, while the animal, or essential creature 
itself, is a close prisoner within the bony case, and 
never visible or exposed during its life. To drag it 
out of the bony case, or to destroy the case, and ex- 
pose it to any rude action, even of external air, is to 
kill and destroy it. Nor does it exist per se, but it 
depends on excitements and sustenance, received by 
the lungs, the stomach, and the blood ; and the chief 
part of its own functions consist in rendering these 
accessory to its own comforts, habits, and existence; 
the intermediate products being results of the action 
and re-action of pairs of organs ; and the whole ani- 
mal resembling a vegetable, whose roots are turned 
inside, and to which soil, or food, is applied in the 
cavity of the stomach. 

XL— Art. LXXXV. 

In regard to these speculations, promulgated in 
correction of gross and degrading superstitions in 
natural philosophy, the Author would consult his 
peace by forbearing to publish, if he did not know 
and were not enabled to derive confidence from the 
facts, that Aristotle was banished Athens, that 
Roger Bacon was proscribed, that Copernicus 
durst not publish till death had removed him from the 
hazard of persecution, that Galileo was impri- 
soned, obliged to retract, and read the penitential 
psalms, that Kepler lived in neglected poverty, 
and lost his life in riding after a pension of 20/. a- 



FOR. THE STUDY OF NATURE. 367 

year to keep his family from starving, that Des- 
cartes, who founds his philosophy on the belief of 
God, was persecuted as an Atheist, that Newton 
lamented he had ever become an author, that 
Priestley was hunted out of his country because 
he denied some dreams of theology ; and, as all these 
atrocities merely cover the several ages, and the con- 
temporary princes and powers, with ignominy and 
infamy, and serve to emblazon the sufferers with more 
resplendant glory ; so the Author bears with meek- 
ness, and even with pity, the insults and taunts of 
ignorance, conceit, and folly, of which he often sees 
himself made the butt and object. Patience and self- 
confidence are the only remedies in such cases, though 
primary questions always exist in regard to the true 
importance of the points in dispute, and the reality of 
discovery. Vanity and error have probably led hun- 
dreds to assimilate their cases to those of the eight 
distinguished martyrs named above, and men often 
give themselves airs about the veriest trifles, and, 
with idle pride, vaunt their originality ; discrimina- 
tion therefore is difficult, but, in general, the re-action 
of opponents affords an unequivocal test. If these 
are gentle, argumentative, and little affected, the 
author may or may not have made a discovery ; but, 
if they are violent and abusive, then the value of the 
discovery may be estimated by the measure of vio- 
lence or abuse ; for epithets, and insults, will rise in 
malignity, just as the author is unanswerable or im- 
portant. Rage and envy, in such cases, stifle all 
argument ; and, in proportion as the weapons of rea- 
son are found useless, the malignity of the passions 
always rise. Foul language used by disputants instead 
of syllogisms, sarcasm instead of argument, and pas- 
sion in place of reason, are signs of malignant re- 
action, and are always to be received as infallible tests 
of merit in a cause ; and, proved by these overt acts, 
an author ought to be perfectly convinced of the 
indubitable truth of the doctrines which he has pro- 



368 APPENDIX. 

mulgated, while any excess of excitement proves that 
they are important enough even to have a chance of 
nourishing through future ages. 

Nevertheless, in this case, it deserves .to be re- 
corded that, except in the instance of Mr, W. 
Frend, in his annual volume, no living writer has, 
within seven years, publicly avowed his accordance 
with the Author. Two or three anonymous writers 
have been courteous, and about a hundred private 
persons have addressed letters of eulogy to him ; 
but none of them, though many avow the sentiment 
of fear, have had the hardihood to become public 
partizans. On the other hand, in fifty printed 
works of science and professed criticism, the Author 
has seen himself reviled and caricatured, hisopinions 
ridiculously perverted, and wilfully and studiously 
misrepresented, and then easily and triumphantly 
refuted ; while, horrible as is the fact, and disgraceful 
as it is to human nature, he declares that, instead of 
his interest, honour, or comfort, being in any degree 
served or augmented, by the promulgation of any 
truths, philosophical, moral, or literary, he verily 
believes that passion, prejudice, or ignorance, have 
rendered his labours disadvantageous to him in many 
relations of society and enjoyments of life ! 

Such, however, always was human nature, such 
now is human nature; and such, without special cor- 
rections, always will be human nature. It ought 
not to be so; it need not be so; with very slight 
arrangements, it might be otherwise, and, that it may 
be otherwise, the melancholy fact is proclaimed ! 

Some of the causes have been developed in the 
chapter on Truth ; but perhaps, before the year 
2500, institutions for protecting truth will be adopted 
in all well regulated countries, and the discoverers of 
new truths, through the activity, discrimination, and 
public virtue of such guardians, receive honours and 
rewards, instead of suffering insults and pro- 
scription, j* 

40 6 




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